I Hate Quantum Mechanics!
by tcs-shadowwalker
Summary: Reposted after settling a complaint... This is an alternate version of my Legacy series...except in this case, this is a an actual dimensional crossing. Inspired by and with some, if not most, of the battle scenes accredited to JonHarper and team...
1. Chapter 1

This is variation of my Legacy of the Ancients, Destiny of the Tau'ri but this is a genuine trans-dimensional crossover but in the spirit of SG-1, purely accidental...after a fashion but I was inspired by Chronicles of the Crusade by JonHarper plus I've included a few things from Reaper's Origin by prometheus55 and Spartan Dawn by Freedom Guard

And I do not own Stargate, Stargate: Atlantis, Halo, Babylon 5, etc., etc.

I Hate Quantum Mechanics!

Chapter 1: Crashing the Gate...Literally!

Prologue

_Orilla_

_ Asgard Homeworld_

_ Ida Galaxy_

_ Earth Date: December 3, 2008_

_Asgard Capital City_

"So, Thor buddy, what's so important that you need us and the _Odyssey_ for?" Jack O'Neill directs at Thor, Supreme Commander of the Asgard and long-time friend to SG-1, especially to O'Neill, as the two walked, well, O'Neill walked while Thor kept pace on a hover-chair, along a walkway overlooking the Asgard capital.

Unfortunately, Thor's answer was not what he was expecting, in fact, it was downright depressing!

"It is of great importance, O'Neill...in five days time, Orilla and the Asgard will be no more."

"WHAT? Why?" Jack shouts out in surprise and horror.

"The genetic degradation of our cloned DNA has become malignant and irreversible, many bodies are on the verge of full systemic failure or have failed entirely though some have disapproved of this course of action, the Asgard High Council has decided to the Tau'ri...everything."

O'Neill sits on the floor in shock and dismay, asking, "Everything?"

"Everything...our knowledge, our technology, everything." Thor answers matter-of-factually. "You are the Fifth Race, O'Neill; we have chosen the Tau'ri as our successor, we believe that you have the wisdom and the foresight to use our gift well to the benefit of the greater good. It is our time to step back and let the chosen race continue our work. I know you well enough, O'Neill, that you still think that your race still need more time but we believe that you are ready for this responsibility." Thor states solemnly.

"Sure, no pressure," Jack replies flippantly, his trademark insolence back in place, though Thor have been around humans long enough to see the worried look in his eyes.

"You will do well, O'Neill but that is not all, we have also decided, to ensure the safety of our legacy, six _O'Neill_-class battleships, three _Samantha Carter_-class engineering vessels and two _Daniel Jackson_-class science vessels, fully equipped with our latest weapons and shields, will be escorting you back to Earth with you which is the reason why we have also asked the Tau'ri to send six additional command crews, they will command the _O'Neill_'s on the return trip, their bridges have already been modified to accommodate Tau'ri physiology and command systems, the _Samantha Carter_ and _Daniel Jackson_ vessels will cloak themselves before heading to Earth on auto-pilot."

Jack's eyes widen at that tidbit, "SIX? Six of the biggest, most bad-ass warships this side of the galaxy? Just to ensure your legacy stays safe? Are you sure that we didn't rub off on you just a little?"

"I personally admit that having six of our battleships escorting you home may be a bit much but given what the Ori are capable of and the trials you will have to face further down, some believe that six may not be enough..."

"But why the engineering and science vessels though?"

"It has been noted that the Tau'ri have inherited your ancestors' insatiable appetite for exploration, discovery and invention so it was decided that a dedicated science vessels would be of great help and would be well-used; as for the engineering vessels, you will be needing their capability to both construct other ships and repair the _O'Neill_'s should they take any battle damage."

"What about...?"

"We will self-destruct the entirety of both our world and our remaining vessels to ensure that none may find and abuse our knowledge and technology, the Asgard Legacy computer core and the eleven ships we have left to you will be all that is left of the Asgard."

"So there's no other way, is there?" Jack sighs sadly, looking down on the polished floor.

"I am afraid not…Jack." Thor replies solemnly.

Jack looks up in surprise at the use of his nickname.

"It felt…appropriate for the moment, you have always call me your friend yet I have not returned the gesture…now I strangely feel that returning the gesture now felt like it was the right thing to do." Thor explains with a perplexed frown.

Jack grins broadly, "Maybe you little guys didn't remove your emotions after all…maybe you just forgot how to use them."

Thor nods thoughtfully, "A plausible explanation, O…Jack."

"So what sort of upgrade will the _Odyssey_ be getting?"

"We will begin with the power core and its distribution systems, relegating the naquadah reactors to reserve generators and replacing them with two neutrino-ion generators as well as a ZPM receiving station as her primary power core; secondly, your shield generators will be replaced with the latest Asgard shield generators along with a reserve generator should the first one fail; thirdly, the rotary rail guns of the _Odyssey_ will be upgraded to fire 20mm Naquadah-Potassium rounds accelerated to 3600 km/s as well as two secondary triple 120mm railgun batteries with 4300 km/s acceleration, her vertical launch system will reequipped with gravitic accelerators and kinetic launch rails for faster launching and reloading while the missiles will be refitted with micro-ion thrusters for superior speed and maneuverability, the _Odyssey_ will also be equipped with the latest Asgard Plasma Pulse Cannons with two protecting the forward and dorsal arcs, one protecting the rear and ventral arcs…we are also installing an experimental weapon on the _Odyssey_'s prow, it is a pair of prototype Linear Ion Cannons, conceptualized by Colonel Carter, capable of firing in both pulse and beam configuration, utilizing an array of magnetic fields built into the barrel to super-focus and intensify the weapon's energy blast while improving both the range and efficiency, also the corresponding sensors and scanners will be replaced by Asgard sensors; fourthly, we will also be installing a computer core containing all of our knowledge thus turning the Odyssey into a Legacy ship as well as improving the _Odyssey_'s reaction time." Thor somehow explained in one breath.

If this was an anime, Jack would have been utterly slack-jawed...and drooling a waterfall...at Thor, he thought Thor was only kidding but this meant that the Asgard are indeed serious, then his mind registers a certain fact...

"Linear Ion Cannon?"

"Colonel Carter took the Tollan Ion Cannon and modified it on the hypothesis that magnetic focusing fields might be able to boost their range and power, then requested if it was possible for us to construct a functional prototype; several of our scientists were surprised at the ingenuity of the modification, simple yet effective."

Jack grins broadly at the praise to his fiancé, "That's typical Carter ingenuity and improvisation."

"Indeed but we have added our own modifications as well..."

Jack cocks an eyebrow. "And they are...?"

"It has been modified to be able to fire plasma, much like our own Pulsed Plasma Cannons as well as fire large-bore kinetic projectile."

Jack's eyes widen in shock and his mouth goes slack-jawed for the second time, "A multipurpose weapon system?"

"Correct, Colonel Carter's overall concept showed much potential, as it is, we believe that it can grow further but that would be up to the Tau'ri."

"So how long will everything take?"

"Our estimates place our deadline at four days which is also how long we have before the Ori arrive."

Jack grins broadly and jumps to his feet, "Well, what are we waiting for? Let's get to work!"

_Four da__ys later…_

Jack grins proudly as he looks out the bridge of the _Odyssey_, the past four days have been very 'productive' as they had just finished the upgrades and modifications to the _Odyssey_ and her battleship escorts ahead of schedule, the _Odyssey_ is primed and ready to fly, having undergone a full shakedown yesterday including couple of hyperspace jump which was where they detected a flaw in the Legacy core, it was emitting a signature that could be detected even through hyperspace, a dangerous liability, while the _O'Neill's_ that were to be her escorts and guardians have just finished test firing their new point defense pulse lasers and secondary twin Linear Ion Cannon batteries, right now, he was watching the Odyssey's fighter jockeys test launch and land on the _O'Neill's'_ new fighter bays mounted underneath the 'wings' of the massive battleships along with testing the new upgrades to the now designated F-302B, the Asgard had gone ape on the upgrading; swapping out human computers for Asgardian ones, the engines and maneuvering thrusters for fighter sized ion drives and gravitic impulse drives, the old titanium for a shield generator, plus dual Naquadah reactors for power, and Asgard neutronium-naquadah alloy armor, the railguns have been pulled out, replaced by two rotary micro plasma cannons, and upgraded, remounted on a modular belly turret system, two internal missile bays for eight short range missiles each, two more internal bays for 28 each of the new medium-range micro-missile _(He couldn't wait to give the Ori a taste of the 'missile spam')_ weapon system and six retractable wing-mounted missile racks for anti-ship operations, a short range hyperdrive with a rechargeable antimatter battery, inertial dampeners and emergency transporter. _(Whew, got to remember to take one out for a spin!)_

He was sharply jolted out of his reverie when the ensign at the sensor station calls out, "General, we have hostile incoming! Two Ori battleships inbound on a course aimed directly at Orilla!"

Jack turns sharply, his jovial mood being blown out of the water by the report and goes into his 'command' state of mind, "Comms, patch me through to Thor and the rest of our fleet…and have the fleet go to battle-stations, spread out and be ready to turn this fight into a turkey-shoot."

A flash of light came into existence in front of the bridge, a holographic representation of Thor, as usual Thor went straight to the point, his tone formal, "General O'Neill, we are ready." This meant that the Asgard self-destruct protocols were in place and ready to go.

A thought struck Jack, "Hey, Thor, did your people include your DNA and memory matrices into the Legacy core?"

"Yes, why?" Thor looks at Jack puzzled.

"Then this isn't good bye just yet, buddy, whatever it takes, we'll bring you back, that's a promise."

"No, my friend, it will not be that simple, the DNA sequences have been locked out; we, the Asgard, have lived long and well but it is time for us to step back and let our successors continue our work, we believe in your potential and your destiny; you are the Fifth Great Race, it will be you who will now lead the younger races. Good-bye, Jack…," the equivalent of a smile briefly passes through Thor's features, "and may the Force be with you."

Jack simply couldn't help himself as he replies with a broad grin, "See you on the other side of the eternity, buddy…," then he snaps to attention with crisp precision and proceeds to salute his friend and counterpart.

Thor nods in appreciation and cuts off the transmission…just as the distinct purple cloud of an opening hyperspace window opens just ahead of the gathered fleet.

…and right into their gun-sights!

Jack roars out, "All ships: waste the bastards!"

All seven warships, the engineering and science vessels were sent to Earth the day before each with a SG team aboard for security purposes, let loose their combined fury in a storm of weapons fire as plasma and ion bolts and beams arc out at a furious rate, striking with unerring accuracy at the Ori ships, who were caught off guard by the bombardment, one swiftly succumbs to the barrage of fire, exploding in a spectacular flash of hot gas and molten debris, the other soon follows.

Jack barks out, "Helm, take us to the safe distance Thor told us about, I want to see their last day. Comms, relay same order to the fleet."

The Odyssey and her fleet break free of Orilla's gravity and accelerate to full speed until they reach the safe distance Thor told them about and watched as the Asgard self-destruct their technology and everything else in between, SG-1 and the rest of the Tau'ri aboard the Odyssey and the escorts watch with sadness as their ally pass away into the void, some murmuring short prayers or blessings for the millions and billions of lives who chose to die with their heads high rather than let their technology and knowledge fall into the wrong hands.

By unspoken agreement, the fleet closes again and scan the remains of the planet, destroying or disintegrating any large fragment that might contain Asgard technology, after a careful four hour sweep, the fleet pulls away but not before rendering one last honor to the Asgard, a full 21-gun salute by each ship as well as a full honor guard salute by every crew and officer aboard; SG-1 was the last to leave the hanger, as they look out the force-field barrier of the hanger bay, they say their last words of farewell, then Jack has the bridge beam a special plaque to one of the asteroids as his own personal way of appreciating everything the Asgard have done for the Tau'ri; upon it were these words:

IN MEMORIAM, DECEMBER 7TH, 2008

UPON THESE STONES, LAY THE ASHES OF THE ASGARD

THE FOURTH GREAT RACE

FIRST GUARDIANS, THEN TEACHERS AND FRIENDS OF THE TAU'RI

THE FIFTH GREAT RACE

INHERITORS OF THEIR LEGACY, GUARDIANS OF THE FUTURE

YOUR BODIES MAYBE ASH BUT YOUR MEMORIES REMAIN BRIGHT AND STRONG

IN OUR HEARTS AND MINDS

MAY DEATH BE ONE LAST GREAT ADVENTURE

FOR IN YOUR DEATH, WE...AND THE GALAXY...MAY LIVE FREE AND TRUE

MAY YOUR SOULS REST EASY IN THE HEREAFTER.

SIGNED,

(SG-1)

Jonathan J. 'Jack' O'Neill

Samantha Carter

Daniel Jackson

Teal'c

In unison, the fleet opens a 'shared' hyperspace window and jump in sequence with the Odyssey being in the middle of the convoy as she held the Legacy core…

Jack mentally roars out. _Look out galaxy, the Tau'ri are here to stay and we will not fail the Asgard!_

_Five__ years have passed since that fateful December 7__th__; the Ori have been defeated with the help of Merlin and the Ark of Truth along with the destruction of the Ori Supergate; the Wraith have been largely wiped out and forced back into hibernation but the Tau'ri and their Pegasus allies maintain their vigilance with roving patrols and extensive reconnaissance of uninhabited worlds, destroying Hive Ships on the ground with well-placed nuclear and antimatter mines; The Genii were finally forced to acknowledge that the Tau'ri were the dominant military force of the Pegasus Galaxy, all their knowledge and the technological know-how to build nuclear weaponry removed from their libraries; the Lucian Alliance has been forced underground after the Tau'ri scatter their fleet to the four winds, removing a irritation that been plaguing several important systems; the Stargate on the Goa'uld home-world has been removed and the planet destroyed by way of a 15-gigaton Horizon strike to ensure that they never return to enslave the other races again; the Tok'ra too fell from grace after the death of Jacob Carter and Selmak as they tried to impose their will upon the Tau'ri only to be rebuffed at every turn, what few remained true to their core beliefs were spared and allowed to rebuild their population along with the lessons learned from the past; the Stargate program is finally Disclosed to the world and the Stargate Alliance braces for the potential backlash, surprisingly it was milder than expected but as expected, the Middle East, Africa and parts of Central and South America exploded into turmoil with Iran at the head, largely due to the loss of oil revenues that allowed it to fuel terrorist organizations, attempts at terrorism in the cities of the Stargate Alliance were stopped cold by the advanced technologies of the Asgard; the more militant groups of the Jaffa had banded together and attempted to take and steal important planets, shipyards and technologies, on the basis that they were older and superior to the Tau'ri, only to be stopped cold at every turn, when they dropped out of hyperspace over Earth...right into the gunsights of the gathered and waiting Tau'ri fleet, Earth being warned by their allies and supporters amongst the Free Jaffa and their new long-range sensor network, comprised of four Daedalus battlecruisers, three O'Neill battleships and the Prometheus. An attempt to peaceful negotiations was cut short when the flagship opened fired...only to ineffectually flare against the Prometheus' shields; the engagement was short and brutal...for the attacking Jaffa, that is. The far superior weaponry of the gathered Tau'ri fleet made mincemeat of the Ba'al-type Hataks, each lasting only seconds with only the flagship last a third longer; the world finally settles into equilibrium as the enhanced forces of the US and her allies finally quell the terrorist networks that once plagued them and uncover the sources of their funding, dictatorships fall like rotten fruit as popular uprisings bring them down, their people not wanting to be left behind by the neck breaking pace of the influx of new technologies._

_ Five years since the Battle of Lunar Orbit, with much of both galaxies having recovered for the numerous wars, the Tau'ri sent delegations to their various friends and allies across both galaxies to gather in a formal ceremony led by President Hayes to the formal declaration and creation of the Tau'ri Federation, the successor to the old Stargate Alliance; a year later, the Federal Armed Forces, effectively the combined military forces of the TF's member races, initiates a sweeping upgrade and expansion program that create an unified system of weapons, armor, vehicles and ships that streamlines their supply requirements and other supply related issues..._

_ However, the Federation has yet to completely locate all of the technologies and devices left behind by the Ancients but in the case of SG-1, fate and destiny tends to have a very twisted sense of humor..._

_ Task Force Null-Alpha, enroute back to Earth after completing space-trials of XBB-306 Archangel-class Battleship, TFS _Archangel

_ Escort forces: _

Aurora-II_ class Dreadnaughts: TFS _Nova Storm _and TFS _Solar Storm

Bengalus_-class Escort Carrier: TFS _Tiger's Claw_ and TFS _Shadow Stalker

_DSC/BC-304A _Daedalus I-_class Battlecruisers: USAF/TFS _Daedalus (-01E) _and USAF/TFS_ Apollo (-04E)

_BC-305B _Hyperion_-class Assault Battlecruisers: TFS Hyperion and TFS Persephone _

_DDG-90A _Athena_-class Heavy Destroyers: TFS _Guardian of the Aegis_, TFS _Tyrant's Bane_, TFS _Tyrant Hunter_, TFS _Excelsior_, TFS _Hyperstorm_, TFS _Typhoon_, TFS Stormwind, and TFS Warfire _

_FFG-303A _Prometheus II_-class Heavy Frigates: TFS _Forward Unto Dawn_, TFS _Aegis Fate_, TFS _Firestorm_, TFS _Phoenix_, TFS _Northwind_, TFS _Threads of Fate_, TFS _Phoenix Tears_, TFS _Stormhawk_, TFS _Iwo Jima_ (MEF assault vessel), and TFS _Tarawa _(MEF assault vessel)_

_ Support forces: _

Samantha Carter_-class engineering vessels: TFS _Mechanicus_ and TFS _Tech Priest

Daniel Jackson_-class science vessels: TFS _Einstein _and TFS _Oppenheimer

_SP-07A _Fox_-class Stealth Prowlers: TFS _Tread Lightly_, TFS _Shadowy Steps_, TFS _Ninja's Tread _and TFS_ Ghost Stalker

Amazon_-class Super Freighters: TFS _Prairie Town _and TFS _Northwest Passage

_ Command vessel: BC-303-E USAF/TFS_ Prometheus.

_Group Commander/Command Group: Major-General Jonathan O'Neill and SG-1 (expanded). _

_ Supporting Ground and Special Forces: 4__th__ and 7__th__ Marine Expeditionary Forces, SPARTAN Blue (Prometheus) and Noble (Archangel) Teams, total: 12 SPARTANS and four platoons of Federation Rangers, total: 144 troops_

The purple-blue swirling maelstrom of hyperspace soothes Jack O'Neill's slightly frazzled nerves as he lay naked next to an equally naked Sam Carter-O'Neill, looking out the 'window' in their cabin towards the brand new XBB-777 _Archangel_-class Battleship, TFS Archangel, under the command of her equally new captain and nephew, Alexander "Alex" O'Neill-Murphy Jr., they had left their twins Anakin and Padme* with his younger sister, Jessica "Jessie" O'Neill-Murphy, a work-at-home 3D modeler and animator and part-time Foley artist, who went giddy at the holographic projection and manipulation unit Jack had brought as a gift/bribe and her husband, Capt. Alexander Murphy Sr. of the FBI's elite HRT and a former Navy SEAL assault/CQB specialist with a 'little' explosive expertise on the side.

Jack grins at the memory of he and Sam attending his sister's rather late wedding to Alex Sr., the jerk had the gall to marry her _after_ he found out that she was preggers a _second_ time…and in typical big brother fashion, Jack charged, more like beamed over, to Alex's house and proceeded to pound the daylights out of him but Alex gave as good as he got so by the time Sam and Jessie intervened, both men were in the half-demolished living room nursing ice packs…and three-and-a-half consumed bottles of five-year old Jack Daniels; both men were simultaneously congratulating and insulting the other while trading war stories though Jack dominated with his adventures and close-calls as part of SG-1 and the Stargate Program which has now been formally Disclosed, to which Alex called Jack the luckiest and the craziest SOB alive before both pass out from too much alcohol and damage.

The two have been best buddies ever since…

Of course, little Kiara was more than happy to have her cousins around to play with after school…plus she somehow managed make Jack promise her a ride on one of the new F-302C and field trip to Endor _(Yes, the Federation did find Endor, just one that's a bit more tame…after a fashion)_ via the Prometheus…just as soon as he could finagle a way to do so _(Liar.)_.

The squadron was in hyperspace, SG-1 having gathered on the bridge to prepare their report, just as they are crossing over the Saturn's rings when their hyperspace path intersects the orbit of a very special object…

Said object, currently resembling a plus sign with long arms, ancient mechanisms come to life as a pair of rare perfect ZPMs send huge quantities of power through the artifact, the artifact swiftly opens like a blooming flower to resemble an oval Stargate roughly five kilometers long and four high, the space within flares to life to reveal...another asteroid belt...once the event horizon was open and active, several other modules come to life, four orbital stabilization modules pulse out bursts of gravimetric energy, moving the artifact into alignment with the squadron's expected hyperspace exit and holding it in place, then two modules on the artifact's flanks perform their function...pulsing a hyperspace interdiction field around the artifact...and drag the squadron out of hyperspace and on a direct course for the event horizon while simultaneously projecting a tractor field that drew the squadron into the event horizon, all of which happens in the space of one minute.

Only the SGC veterans were able to react 'appropriately'...

Jack - _"Here we go again..."_

Sam - _"Wow, another Ancient artifact…"_

Teal'c – _"Fascinating…"_

Daniel – _"This could be trouble…again…"_

Mitchell – _"Way cool!"_

Vala – _'__I wonder if there's any treasure on the other side…'_

_Saturn Orbit_

_ Earth Alliance territory_

_ November 1, 2266_

_ Battle of Earth_

In a rare happenstance, Saturn's orbit and the orbit of its moons coincided to utterly mask the activation of the exact same artifact the task force 'crashed' into, shielding the artifact from any nearby sensors from detecting the massive surge of power from the artifact and the surprisingly orderly dumping of the squadron back into reality...

_ Earth Orbit_

_(I sincerely regret copying this directly for JonHarper's Battle of Earth but the way constructed it was pure badass, the scenes inserted before, during and after the Battle of Earth will be largely original...therefore the battle scenes for the Battle of Earth belong to JonHarper and as such is his intellectual property. So note it be. PS: I've also done some spelling checks and corrections.)_

"What I want to know is why?" Captain Susan Ivanova complained. "Why we are still here in Earth space after completing trials, after proving our readiness and after making sure none of us were President Clark's ultra loyal nut case freaks!" She sighed heavily and slouched in her command chair, the monitors beside showing the peaceful scene in Earth orbit as ships gathered.

"Well, at least you weren't one of Clark's nut case freaks." Commander Alan Morton offered helpfully and earned himself a scathing look from his Captain. "Or any kind of nutcase freak at all." He added quickly.

"It's just you know, we joined Earth force to see the galaxy, sure we have to expect the odd fixed post, but as a starship Captain I expected to move around a bit, see the League and maybe even travel to Minbar." Ivanova waved her hands. "But no, we haven't left the home system in three years! It's getting a little boring."

"I guess sitting on Babylon 5 all those years must have been dull." Morton suggested.

"I wish!" she exclaimed. "One thing B5 never was, was dull. But it was different, when I transferred back to the fleet I expected more, especially with this new ship."

Ivanova was referring to her command, the EAS _Titans_, one of the first of Earth forces new Warlock-class heavy destroyers build up to the limits of human technology. They were formidable ships quantum leaps beyond vessels from just a few decades ago, but they had never been tried in pitched battle and had a troubled history with numerous redesigns since their origins in the Clark era. The _Titans_ had been a test bed for all these trials and modifications and as such had spent as much time in dock as on deployment.

"But at least we're looking good now." Morton smiled helpfully. "Our gravitic drive and artificial gravity are all checked out thanks to the ISA programme, and the class is in full production now."

It had taken a while, but the Warlock project had become Earth's new frontier in both science and defense with massive retooling of the old Omega yards to begin full construction of the new destroyer by the hundreds. The galaxy was at peace, but it seemed that tensions were still growing especially with the Centauri Republic which seemed to be collapsing in on itself. Raiders were still hitting the occasional shipping line and there were constant rumors of left over Shadow technology and weapons in the hands of their left behind servants. For the Earth Alliance the more recent concerns had revolved around the breakup of the Psicorps and the large number of dangerous Telepaths roaming Earth space and beyond trying to destabilize the government with hidden assets. One or two Psicorps mother ships had been found and destroyed, but there were potentially dozens more floating around hiding from detection.

"All the more reason for us to be out there doing something." Ivanova waved her hand directionless towards the front of the ship. "Not sat in Earth orbit on another exercise." She had decided that no ship in history had gone through so many exercises, it seemed Earth force command wanted to play out every possible scenario with the early Warlocks to see how they behaved before letting them loose on the galaxy, and she was getting sick of it. "This is a punishment you know," she continued. "Give me this fine ship and adequate first officer, and then lock me up at home and not let me take it out for a spin!"

"Well thanks for the praise." Morton half smiled, he was used to Ivanova's odd humor but also recognized no one could be as cool as her in a crisis. On a few occasions some of the more experimental systems had suffered major faults and Ivanova's calm and rapid response had averted disaster. She also had an incredible combat record thanks to her time on Babylon 5, just about anyone from that station was a hero and serving under her command on Earthforce's best ship was a real dream assignment, one Morton was damn glad to receive despite the lack of adventure.

"I mean we got everything working a year ago, it's time we took up the frontline duties we trained for." She said with exasperation.

"Well look on the plus side, this is a massive exercise, and real short notice." Morton grinned. "Kinda exciting."

"Yeah. Woohoo." Ivanova groaned.

"It's on the Presidents direct request." Morton said, "I've never heard anything like it."

"President Luchenko?" she asked with a frown, speaking of the Earth Alliance leader. "I thought it was General Denisov's idea, he gave the orders."

"No and no." Morton said, pleased to be delivering the information. "It's from President Sheridan, I think you used to hang out together once or twice?"

"So I recall." She said flatly. "Wonder why he's making ripples in Earth space, I'd have thought Luchenko wouldn't have released so many ships at once."

The fleet at Earth was truly impressive, hundreds of Earth force destroyers had gathered along with a wealth of allied vessels ranging from Brakiri cruiser and Drazi Sunhawks right up to the over bearing Minbari Warcruisers, still an intimidating sight after all these years and the source of a deep seated unease among most humans. Some wounds took a very long time to heal.

"They must have called in every single ship in range." Morton agreed. "I've never seen anything like it."

"I have," Ivanova gritted her teeth. "Couple of times, didn't tend to end pretty."

"But this is an exercise, I wonder what it'll be based on?"

"A surprise attack on Earth I guess." She shrugged. "I dunno, but all these ships here mean the patrols aren't out there, it'll be open season for raiders and Pirates. What's John thinking?"

From their right hand side on the bridge a chime sounded, the duty officer gave it her attention and read off the report.

"It's a jump point, reading two vessels, unknown configuration."

"Get a scan of them." Ivanova said as she stood. The _Warlocks_ had basic artificial gravity but couldn't generate Earth normal, it was closer to Martian gravity which made moving around a cautious affair but overall much better than the zero gravity of other vessels which lacked the rotating simulated gravity sections in Earth force. She and Morton stopped by a computer display as a three dimensional image of the new arrivals appeared.

"Wow." Morton gasped. "Look at the size of that thing!"

The display showed a tri-winged design that didn't quite follow any pattern Ivanova could discern, it had Minbari elements to it, Human elements, even a hint of Vorlon looking at some of the protrusions near the bow. To her eyes it looked like a war machine, a lean killer of the space ways spoiling for a good fight.

"Guess we're not the baddest ship in orbit anymore." She sighed.

"Captain, we have a signal." Ensign Patel reported from the communication post. "President Sheridan is aboard one of those ships, he's talking to fleet command."

"Sheridan?" Morton raised an eyebrow. "Thank God, I was worried we'd have to fight them."

"That's the John Sheridan I know," Ivanova half chuckled. "Always makes a good entrance."

"Do you think he wanted to test those new ships then? That's the exercise?" Morton half asked and half stated. "Where the hell did he get those from anyway?"

He didn't get to answer, two dozen warnings and caution alarms flared at once across the large bridge area, drawing both them back to the centre.

"We've got a major incursion," Lieutenant Rossdale barked from the weapons stations. "Jump points opening in lunar orbit."

"What type of ships?" she snapped.

"Part of the exercise?" wondered Morton.

"I don't think this is an exercise." Ivanova said slowly, eyes fixed on the tactical display rapidly filling with red dots.

"Confirmed." Said Patel. "This is for real, battle plans feeding through from fleet command."

"Transfer data to tactical, sound battle stations." Ivanova ran off orders. "Do we have ship ID's?"

"Best guess would be Drakh vessels, thousand plus, and something I've never seen before." Rossdale replied.

"What do you mean?" Ivanova settled in her chair, Morton taking up his station to her left. "Patch through a visual."

For a moment the screen remained black and it took Ivanova a minute to register what she was seeing. The blackness was shifting and moving, slowly passing the moon. It wasn't a mistake and it made her blood run cold at the memory, she had seen this before.

"Ah Hell."

"Alyt Shaleth! Look!"

From the command room of his Warcruiser the Minbari officer snapped his head around at the warning. Like most of the other fleet members he had been studying the newly arrived warships recognizing some standard Minbari technology fused into their hulls. The strange hybrids had distracted him from thoughts about why the ISA wanted him here, thoughts which were quickly answered when he looked up.

"Valen's name!" he exclaimed in awe. The fleet of Drakh ships alone would have given him a moment of pause but it was the terrifying black mass behind them which really caught his breath. "It cannot be!"

"Our sensors confirm it sir." His second, Tuvan, answered. "A Shadow Planet killer."

"But the Shadows are gone, driven from our galaxy in defeat."

"It seems they did not take everything with them." Tuvan suggested. "President Sheridan is arraying our forces for battle."

The Shai Alyt nodded. "It is somehow fate that he leads our fleets once more in battle against the darkness. Order our ships into combat formation; we focus on the enemy cruisers to our front."

"The heaviest ships are taking the point of the fleet." Tuvan said. "Sheridan is looking for us to open up a path."

"Then we will not disappoint." Shaleth nodded, he had fought at Coriana 6 with Sheridan and he'd seen these planet killers in action, he would not allow it to strike one of the founder worlds of this great new Interstellar Alliance. "Full attack."

"Primary batteries charged and ready." Rossdale announced. "Missiles armed and ready to fire."

"Very well," Ivanova said formally. "At this time I am authorizing use of strategic nuclear weapons. Take off the safeties and make ready to fire."

The fleet had begun deploying in a tight cone shaped formation designed like a three dimensional wedge to stab through the wall of Drakh ships preceding the Death Cloud. The point of the cone had the best ships in the assembled fleets, Earths Warlocks and the Minbari Sharlin warcruisers, along with Sheridan's new prototype warships. Supporting them were the Omega class ships flaring back on all sides of the heavy hitters covering their flanks and adding their own strength to the assault, and within the cone were the older Earth and League ships acting as reserves. Sheridan had also deployed the Whitestars and Vree saucers as a fast moving strike force designed to rapidly move across the battlezone and offer their firepower to weakening parts of the front.

The whole thing had taken Earth totally by surprise, and while a powerful force was seconds away from engaging a sizable number of ships just weren't ready for battle, they were either re-supplying in orbit or had barely a third of their crews on board, the rest enjoying shore leave on the planet below. The massive defense platforms began their charging process and the battlestations launched fighters and readied their own Particle cannons, but the whole thing could have been a total disaster, one which would finish Earth as a habitable planet. They were unprepared for war, and Earthforce was sending ships into battle that were not fit to fight, something which hadn't happened for nearly twenty years, not since the Battle of the Line.

The Battle of the Line. It was an event engraved in humanity's consciousness as deep as anything in history; it had been a defining moment for all of human civilization, the moment when it had all nearly ended. Since that day the entire defense strategy of Earth had revolved around making sure it never happened again, that humanity would not face that possibility and if an enemy did reach Earth it would be met with all deliberate force. The GOD network had been the most visible response to that threat, but also the fleet elements of Earthforce had trained again and again for this possibility, re-fighting the line with newer technologies and ships so that if the unthinkable happened then Earth had a chance to live.

Now the unthinkable had happened, a massive force of advanced weapons was at the door and beating it down, Earths defenses would be put to the ultimate test and despite the surprise they swung professionally into action. The fleet had assumed one of its standard formations, something every Captain could do in his or her sleep. The waypoints and ranges in near Earth space were already locked into the ships firing systems, the territory as familiar to each of them as the back of their hands. They were on their home ground and they knew what that meant, nobody was running from this battle.

"We're in range." Rossdale announced.

"Launch missiles." Commanded Ivanova. "Ripple fire all tubes, get them out of the silos so we don't have to worry about them, then standby particle cannons."

The EAS _Titans_ fired the first shots of the battle, its missiles being pushed out of their tubes by a quick magnetic surge before their engines engaged and flung the nuclear warheads at the incoming fleet. Earth force was past the stage of worrying about spaceborne weapons of mass destruction and with the new ISA the main galactic authority had been negotiating an amendment to the treaty of Omelos banning Weapons of Planetary destruction. While still technically in force Earth had made sure its frontline ships were equipped with the best weapons in the arsenal, including Nuclear weapons. Those missiles flashed into brief lives as they blasted the first group of Drakh vessels, The _Titans_ sisters following suit. Cruisers died to direct hits and raiders were blasted to scrap by the nuclear fire, but more ships raced through undaunted and closed further into range.

"Fighter squadrons formed up Captain." Morton relayed.

"Deploy them aggressively," Ivanova nodded to her XO, "it's more important to take out enemy ships than to cover us, our defense grid can handle itself, tell them to hit any targets of opportunity and watch Sheridan's command."

The Thunderbolt fighters acknowledged and broke off forming into a loose strike formation. Time was critical in the battle and the Earth defense fleet had to throw everything it had into the fight with the aim of causing maximum losses to the enemy before they hit the defense grid, even at the price of protecting their own ships. The Minbari war had shown that caution usually meant losing your fleet, while aggression also tended to cost you your fleet but at least you could make the enemy bleed for it. It was a tactic as desperate as any humans had executed before and didn't help with their chances of survival, but if it saved Earth it was worth it.

A pair of Drakh cruisers fired on the _Titans_, their energy weapons thumping on the armored hull. The ship was knocked a few degrees off course, an error that was rapidly corrected, but overall was largely unaffected, the heavy hull armor taking the hits without failing.

"Return fire!" Ivanova yelled over the ringing in her ears left by the hits. "Forward guns, engage at will!"

The lights dimmed slightly as power surged to the Particle cannons, the hungry weapons drawing energy from across the ship to reach critical firing charge before unleashing two spears of energy bound heavy particles. The red hued beams punched through the first cruiser with ease, burning clean through and winging the ship behind it as the primary target was consumed by the massive firepower. The GOD cannons were designed as one shot kill systems, and this was their first real test, a test they seemed to be acing.

"Target destroyed, but more inbound." Commander Morton kept up his commentary. "Attack ships sweeping around and more cruisers ahead."

"Keep firing, we do not let them break through our formation!" Ivanova pounded her fists. "This isn't going to happen on my watch, I want them dead!"

The _Titans_ was hit again, this time its turreted guns swung around and sliced four raiders out of the sky, the remaining ships broke away and blundered into a fearsome shower of antimatter bolts from a Vree escort. As the fast moving Drakh raiders reached the allied lines the vastly superior Whitestars were ready to meet them, drawing them away and keeping them from massing their fire on the bigger warships of the main force. A dogfight developed with the allied fighters helping out as they could, weaving between the Destroyers and cruisers as they fired on the Drakh fleet.

The railguns on the _Titans_ burst through one of the flowing Drakh ships, its crystalline armor terribly vulnerable to the solid shot and fracturing with each impact. Pulse and laser fire from the vessels multiple turrets maintained a heavy barrage on the approaching lines while the twin Particle cannons fired as quickly as they could charge, clearing the path before them.

The EAS _Mage_ began to slow, its engines suffering repeated hits by the Drakh forces causing it to lose thrust. It fired defiantly, cutting down an enemy cruiser but it was essentially out of the battle, just an obstacle which would be overcome later should the Drakh win. Of the eleven Warlock class destroyers that had made it back for the battle, eight had been fully operational with the number now reduced to seven. The other ships had been incomplete and only partially armed, and so they like the Mage would form the final part of the defense expected to use any tactic to stop the Drakh, including ramming and jump engine overloads.

Ivanova felt the ship take two more hits, the last one causing secondary explosions somewhere. They were taking losses and hadn't even reached the main threat yet, the great death cloud billowing before them. She gritted her teeth and set her resolve, she would not lose this fight.

Shaleth's cruiser elegantly angled its course to pass the wreck of one of its sisters, the blue form ragged and burning red hot after repeated strikes from Drakh warships, air and fuel feeding the flames that died quickly in vacuum, almost as quick as the ship's crew. He held his thoughts, looking beyond the wreck to the mass of Drakh ships ahead and the great enemy's most terrifying weapon. Space was littered with dead ships and the constant flashes of brief fires sent more friends and enemies into the next generation, it was not a truly sad moment for his beliefs told him they would return to life once more, but if the cloud reached Earth a whole planets worth of souls would be racing into the afterlife, a notion which awed and terrified him. Minbar was a part of this galaxy now, as a founder of the Interstellar Alliance and its most powerful member it was expected that the Minbari would take a lead in matters including the defense of other members. Sheridan lead, Delenn ever at his side tempering his decisions with wisdom and Minbari ideals, it was a perfectly measured government and one to which the Minbari people had enthusiastically embraced, and today was the first test of their resolve sending their people to die for a former enemy.

Two Whitestars raced past, their crews the first symbols of the unity between Humans and Minbari, and with them followed a squadron of aging Starfuries which looked like they had been in service since the last time an alien force had hit Earth, a force he had been part of. But that was the past, right now the present demanded his attention.

"Sustained fire." He commanded. "The Drakh are enemies to us all, destroy them."

The green of Minbari neutron weapons joined the red and orange weapons fire of Earth force, concentrating their considerable fire power on the very centre of the Drakh block formation directly ahead of the fleet. The ships secondary weapons swatted raiders from the sky as an afterthought, two Drakh heavy warships falling to Shaleth's attack in a few moments.

A sudden increase in the Drakh losses drew his attention, from his command deck he had a panoramic view of Sheridan's two new vessels opening fire in support of the vanguard units, their bow guns equal to his own primary weapons. They pierced through Drakh armor in seconds tearing apart the inner workings of the formidable enemy ships and leaving them bent and burning wrecks. He admired the skill and power of their attack, watching them part the Drakh lines and open gaps for the lesser Earth ships to exploit and widen. Sheridan kept his ships mobile, predicting where the Drakh would try and counter attack and always making sure at least one of his new warships was ready to meet them. The humans were fighting well, he even had to admit the League were performing far better than expected though only the most modern ships seemed to be making a difference. It was a true allied effort, though the Humans provided most of the forces as was appropriate.

Two further warcruisers had arrived since the battle started, Shaleth assigned them to take the place of destroyed ships in his formation and noted with satisfaction they immediately engaged and proved their worth, destroying more Drakh ships. The fleet was almost in place, a few more minutes and they'd be upon the cloud itself, and from there it was in Valen's hands.

Only SG-1 could keep a relative straight face in the face of an event like this, after all, something like this was a regular occurrence back in the days of the SGC.

Jack calls out, "Snap out of it, people. Sensors, where the hell are we?"

The ensign 2nd class manning the sensor station snaps out of his shock and starts tapping his holographic control panel, accessing the powerful Asgard-Alteran hybrid sensor arrays mounted all over the Prometheus in a multiplex configuration, allowing for greater sensitivity as the powerful arrays sweep the void, gathering everything there is to know...

The readings baffled the ensign, "Sir, according to my scans, we are currently in Saturn's orbit, the planet and its moons have masked our arrival..."

"Probably a coincidence...but given the O'Neill Principle, there's more to it than that..." Jack quietly interjects.

Said ensign knew better than to answer that side comment as he belonged to the post-Disclosure generation, most of the Tau'ri Federation's top commanders came from the old days of the SGC and thus used to crazy and unexpected events happening right out of the blue, "...but according to our charts, ALL the planets are in the wrong points of their orbit...and if I'm reading this correctly, sir; we're not in our own universe as well as our own time anymore...we are roughly 250+ years ahead of our present."

The bridge was silent for a few moments before Jack rose from the command chair and started to bash his head against the bulkhead, "I...'BANG'...HATE...'BANG'...QUANTUM...'BANG'...MECHANICS...'BANG'!"

As usual, SG-1 barely bat an eye at Jack's behavior but the same can't be said for the younger generation, who decide to write it off to PSTD which it wasn't, it was typical Jack O'Neill behavior...

"And there's more, sir." The ensign continues his report. "I'm detecting abnormally large concentrations of tachyons surges from within system."

"What the hell are tachyons?"

"Particles that travel faster than light." Sam answers simply for the ensign.

"Ok, cool…but what makes it so high?"

"I don't know, sir…but the pattern suggest that it might be artificial in nature." Came the reply.

The 1st Lt. manning the communications stations notices an odd pattern in the burst of tachyon surges and electronically 'grabs' a sample, she begins to decrypt the tachyon burst when her system detects an embedded radio signal within the tachyon burst, realizing that this was a form of FTL communication, she extracts the radio signals and begins to decrypt the encoded signals, calling out, "Sir, I think I may have an answer for that."

"Go ahead, Comms." Jack calls out.

"General, I have been monitoring the tachyon surges and we believe they are being used to boost encrypted radio transmissions to FTL speeds." She informed him. "And General...the transmissions are emanating from the vicinity of Earth." She added.

"No one on Earth uses this kind of technology, it's not as efficient as subspace radio..." Sam noted.

"I'm aware of that sir." The woman quickly replied.

"Can you break the encryption?" Jack asked.

"According to my system's analysis matrix...the coding is not very sophisticated, sir; cracking it will not be a problem." She responded from her station.

"How long do you need?"

"I think I can break the code with help from the main computer but it'll take a few minutes."

"Get cracking then. Sam, give her a hand, will you?"

"Yes, sir."

It takes only five minutes for the combined efforts of the three to crack the EA encryption with Sam calling out, "Jack, we broke the code."

"Put it up on speakers."

_zzzz…I have a target lock!...zzzzz Alph…zzzzzzzzz….Alpha 4 break away, break away!...Distance to Target!...zzzzzz..Hull firing! White Star 13 break and engage rear targets, get them off the Warlocks!...zzzz… We just lost the Hecate! She's drifting! Protect the Victory and the Excalibur, they're the only ones who can stop em. Nemesis and Juno are gone, Nimrod and Heracles take their place in formation!...zzz where the Hell's our support! We're being swept aside! They'll be able to position the Planet Killer once that's done!_

"Holy shit! Did I just hear the words planet killer!" The Navigation officer barks out.

He like everyone on the bridge had been listing in with rapt attention hoping to gain some insight from the monitored radio transmissions before deciding a course of action. But the words "Planet Killer" had sent a feeling of utter dread through the entire crew.

"My God, if it's true…" The communications officer whispers, not knowing she'd spoken aloud.

"Sensors, can you confirm this?" Jack calls out.

"Yes, sir...scanning now."

Jack could just make out a hint of a tremor in the young man's voice, apparently what he heard had deeply affected him, along with a good portion of the crew by the looks of it but none of the members of SG-1 even twitched an eyebrow...just another day at the office in the good ole' days.

"Well, Sensors, what do you make of the situation?"

"Sir, I am reading several hundred ships within the vicinity of Earth exchanging weapons fire, a lot of weapons fire, and one unidentifiable object...but it is big enough to encompass a planet." The ensign reports back.

"It may very well be the Planet Killer we have heard of." Teal'c reasoned.

"Sensors, what's the status of that planet killer?" Jack asks.

"It is drawing closer to Earth, sir; I'm guessing it will be able to hit the planet within a few minutes." Came the quick reply.

Jack took in everything within a matter of moments. Earth was in danger of being destroyed and her fleet was taking a pounding and would soon be overrun. Though in his usual fashion, Jack decides to jump in feet first without even thinking things through...besides he's got bigger and better guns now than he once had back in the SGC.

"Weaps, Arm all weapons across the board! Load VLS tubes one through eight with mark nine nukes; nine through fourteen with quantum torpedoes; ready fifteen and sixteen with Horizon-II; load aft launcher with standard anti-ship missiles. Charge the Plasma and Linear Ion Cannons! Ops, tell our pilots to load for bear, mixed enhanced payload of anti-ship and anti-fighter. Comms, order the task force to go to battlestations, we're jumping into the fight...I want the _Archangel_ to act as our backstop, supported by our frigates as our snipers; _Tiger's Claw_ and _Shadow Stalker_ are to anchor the flanks of the _Archangel_ group while launching a full Alpha Strike from their decks; _Mechanicus_ and _Tech Priest_ are to assist with any vessel with crippled or disabled engines and pull them out of harms way; _Einstein_, _Oppenheimer_ and our _Fox_ Prowlers will keep overwatch of the battlefield and alert us of enemy movement; Amazons are to stay cloaked and out of sight until we need replenishment." Jack barks out his orders.

"Yes sir!" was all three station officers' enthusiastic reply.

"All hands man battle stations! We're about to save the world again." Jack calmly states over the ships 1MC system for all to hear.

The crew of the _Prometheus_, including her Spartan contingent, having heard much of the radio chatter intercepted from the battle over Earth, had taken it upon themselves to head towards their battle stations thinking (correctly) they would soon be needed, deploying their protective space-tight armor enroute; the Spartans, already wearing their formidable MJOLNIR power armor, taking their assigned security posts of guarding the bridge, flight deck and engineering. Once the call to battle stations rang out over the ship's loudspeakers; Jack found to his approval, the crew already manning it.

"Helm, plot me a hyperspace jump between us and the Planet Killer."

"Course plotted and awaiting on your orders, sir." The helmsman responded immediately.

"Take us in...and let's kick some ass!"

_With that command, hyperdrive systems across the task force spool up for the short jump, drawing massive amounts of energy from their small yet powerful reactors, though the amount drawn really was small compared to what the reactors themselves could generate when brought to full generation capability._

_ The classic purple-blue maelstrom of a hyperspace window opens before the task force, opening to truly massive proportions from the combined power of the task force's hyperdrives..._

_ With a bright flare of their powerful ion engines, the task force instantly accelerates to lightspeed and beyond, their prows aimed just ahead of an insignificant-looking world..._

_ A world they call home..._

_ A home that is threatened once again..._

_ A threat that must be removed with fire, steel and blood... _

_ And they will not fail!_

_Warship Data_

Archangel-class Battleship _(Design based on Stargate Achilles-class Cruiser)_

Acceleration: 20G

Shield Rating: Asgard-Alteran Hybrid – 20EJ

Armor: 6M (fore); 5.5M (flank); 5M (rear)

Crew: 880 Navy + 210 Marines

Armament –

(6) Asgard Plasma Cannons-Heavy – four fore/two aft

(1) Super Magnetic Accelerator Cannon – spinal

(8) Triple Linear Ion Cannon/150mm railgun Hybrid Batteries – dorsal/ventral-flank/spinal

(8) Asgard Plasma Cannon-Light – two fore/two aft/four flank

(2) 24-shot VLS array – middle-flank

(2) 4-tube missile launcher array – aft

(2) Drone launchers – between hanger pods and main hull

400 Quantum Drones each _(Improvements: 15% smaller, 30% more efficient, improved phasing system, zero point/antimatter hybrid warhead, 40% increased range, 55% increased speed, self-recovering)_

(40) Twin gatling 30mm railgun turrets – point defense mount-heavy

(68) Quad 20mm heavy pulse laser turrets – point defense mount

(4) _Fenrir_-class Unmanned Corvettes

(4) squadrons of F-302D 'Super Scimitar' starfighters each

(12) Puddlejumpers

(6) F-92A _Warbird_-class Open Frame Extra Vehicular Combat units

_ Aurora-II class Dreadnaught__ (Design changes – 20% broader, 15% longer, now built with drone launcher pods in an X-pattern, 30% faster, twin Neutrino-ion reactors as back-up reactors)_

Acceleration: 18G

Shield Rating: Asgard-Alteran Hybrid – 14EJ

Armor: 4.8M (fore); 4.2M (flank); 3.6M (rear)

Crew: 340 Navy + 60 Marines

Armament –

(3) Asgard Plasma Cannons-Heavy – two fore/one aft

(4) Drone Launcher Pods – midline flank

750 Quantum Drones each

(8) Twin Heavy Pulsed Ion Cannon Batteries – dorsal/ventral spinal

(8) Twin Heavy Turbolaser Cannon Batteries – flank

(16) Twin gatling 20mm railgun turrets – point defense mount-heavy

(30) Triple 10mm pulse laser turrets – point defense

(8) Puddlejumpers

(18) V-20B _Guardian _UCSV

Bengalus-class Escort Carrier _(Design based on Wing Commander's Tiger's Claw)_

Acceleration: 14G

Shield Rating: Asgard-Alteran Hybrid – 8.4EJ

Armor: 3.75M (fore); 3.4M (flank); 2.8M (rear)

Crew: 680 Navy + 80 Marines

Armament –

(2) Magnetic Accelerator Cannon – flank-spinal

(2) Asgard Plasma Cannons-Light – aft

(4) Twin Medium Linear Ion Cannon Batteries – flank

(4) 12-shot multi-purpose missile launchers

(8) Twin Pulsed Particle Cannons – flank

(46) Twin 10mm pulse laser turrets – point defense mount

(20) Puddlejumpers

(5) squadrons of (16) F-47 'War Talon' advanced multi-role starfighters each

(4) _Fenrir_-class Unmanned Corvettes

Daedalus I-class (Enhanced Variant)

Acceleration: 24G

Shield Rating: Asgard-Alteran Hybrid – 16EJ

Armor: 4M (fore); 3.6M (flank); 3.2M (rear)

Crew: 400 Navy + 50 Marines

Armament –

(4) Asgard Plasma Cannons-Heavy – two fore/one ventral/one aft

(3) Twin Heavy Linear Ion Cannon Batteries – two dorsal/one ventral

(1) 16-shot VLS array

(18) Twin gatling 20mm railgun turrets – point defense mount-heavy

(32) Twin 10mm pulse laser turrets – point defense mount

(2) squadrons of (16) F-302C 'Scimitar' starfighters each

(8) Puddlejumpers

(2) _Fenrir_-class Unmanned Corvettes

BC-305B Hyperion-class Assault Battlecruiser _(Design based on the Hyperion of Starcraft II but with more streamlining, better protection and much bigger guns)_

Acceleration: 22G

Shield Rating: Asgard-Alteran Hybrid – 22EJ

Armor: 5.5M (fore); 5M (flank); 4.2M (rear)

Crew: 840 Navy + 180 Marines

Armament –

(1) Combined Dual Heavy Magnetic Accelerator Cannons / Heavy Linear Ion Cannon – spinal

(2) Dual Asgard Plasma Cannons-Heavy – wing tips

(1) Asgard Plasma Cannon-Heavy – aft

(4) Triple Heavy Turbolaser Cannon Batteries – wings-dorsal/ventral

(2) 16-shot VLS array – centerline

(16) Twin gatling 20mm railgun turrets – point defense mount-heavy

(30) Twin 20mm pulse laser turrets – point defense mount

(10) Puddlejumpers

(3) _Fenrir_-class Unmanned Corvettes

DDG-90A Athena-class Heavy Destroyer _(Design is a hybrid of B5 Hyperion cruisers and Guardian-class Escort Destroyer from the Halo Fanfic Wiki)_

Acceleration: 23G

Shield Rating: Asgard-Alteran Hybrid – 12EJ

Armor: 3.2M (fore); 2.8M (flank); 2.2M (rear)

Crew: 350 Navy + 48 Marines

Armament –

(3) Asgard Plasma Cannons-Medium – two fore/one aft

(1) Magnetic Accelerator Cannon – spinal

(1) Twin Medium Turbolaser Cannon Battery – dorsal spinal

(2) 14-shot multi-purpose missile pods

(16) Twin gatling 20mm railgun turrets – point defense mount-heavy

(28) Twin 10mm pulse laser turrets – point defense mount

(8) Puddlejumpers

(2) _Fenrir_-class Unmanned Corvettes

FFG-303 Prometheus II-class Heavy Frigate _(Design is a hybrid of the UNSC Frigate and the Prometheus though more on the former rather than the latter)_

Acceleration: 24G

Shield Rating: Asgard-Alteran Hybrid – 10EJ

Armor: 3.5M (fore); 3M (flank); 2.6M (rear)

Crew: 300 Navy + 60 Marines

Armament –

(1) Magnetic Accelerator Cannon – spinal

(2) Asgard Plasma Cannons-Light – flank-spinal

(4) Single Turbolaser Batteries – dorsal/ventral spinal

(4) 8-shot multi-purpose missile pods

(12) Gatling 20mm railgun turrets – point defense mount-heavy

(16) Twin 10mm pulse laser turrets – point defense mount

(6) Puddlejumpers

(2) _Fenrir_-class Unmanned Corvettes (Navy ships) or Wolfhound-class Unmanned Gunships (MEF ships)

Samantha Carter-class Engineering Vessel

Acceleration: 18G

Shield Rating: Asgard-Alteran Hybrid – 18EJ

Armor: 2.7M (fore); 2.4M (flank); 2M (rear)

Crew: 440 Navy + 40 Marines

Armament –

(2) Asgard Plasma Cannons-Light – fore

(14) Twin 10mm pulse laser turrets – point defense mount

(4) _Fenrir_-class Unmanned Corvettes

(12) -E Puddlejumpers _(Engineering-specialized version, transporter/conversion projectors, micro neutrino-ion reactor, reduced capacity to four people, no weapons)_

Daniel Jackson-class Science Vessel

Acceleration: 24G

Shield Rating: Asgard-Alteran Hybrid – 8EJ

Armor: 2.4M (fore); 2.4M (flank); 2.4M (rear)

Crew: 240 Navy + 30 Marines

Armament –

(1) Asgard Plasma Cannon-Light – fore

(4) Single Turbolaser Batteries – dorsal/ventral sections of 'wings'

(16) Twin 10mm pulse laser turrets – point defense mount

(2) _Fenrir_-class Unmanned Corvettes

(12) -S Puddlejumpers _(Scientific-specialized version, enhanced sensors, extra capacity for field equipment and personnel)_

SP-07A Fox-class Stealth Prowler _(Design is a hybrid between UNSC Prowlers and Artemis class Patrolstar by Barricade)_

Acceleration: 30G

Shield Rating: Asgard-Alteran Hybrid – 5EJ

Armor: 3M (fore); 2.6M (flank); 2M (rear)

Crew: 80 Navy + 20 Marines

Armament –

(1) Asgard Plasma Cannon-Light – fore

(1) Turbolaser Cannon-Medium – nose

(8) Retractable Gatling 10mm railgun turrets – point defense mount

_(3) -R Reconjumpers __(Reconnaissance-specialized version, reduced overall length, capacity for only six people, no weapons, passive optical stealth armor, short-range hyperdrive)_

Amazon-class Super Freighter _(Design based on Kholar class Super Freighter by Zhelom Redeux)_

Acceleration: 21G

Shield Rating: Asgard-Alteran Hybrid – 3EJ

Armor: 3.6M (fore); 3.6M (flank); 2.8M (rear)

Crew: 380 Naval Reserve + 60 Marines

Armament –

(2) Twin Medium Turbolaser Cannon Batteries-Medium – dorsal/ventral

(4) Single Turbolaser Cannon Batteries-Medium – flanks

(10) Twin Gatling 20mm railgun turrets – point defense-heavy

(20) Twin 10mm pulse laser turrets – point defense mounts

(20) -C Cargojumpers _(Cargo-carrier version, passenger capacity removed, limited to two-man crew, tractor beam projectors and magnetic grapples, drives moved to upper part of main hull)_

(10) Puddlejumpers

BC-303-E USAF/TFS Prometheus _(This refitted and enhanced Prometheus is 30% longer, 40% wider and 15% higher to accommodate the new weapons and equipment)_

Acceleration: 24G

Shield Rating: Asgard-Alteran Hybrid – 12EJ

Armor: 4.8M (fore); 4.2M (flank); 4M (rear)

Crew: 260 Navy + 90 Marines

Armament –

(1) Asgard Plasma Cannon-Heavy – nose mount

(2) Medium Linear Ion Cannon – flank spinal mount

(2) Asgard Plasma Cannon-Light – aft spinal top/bottom mount

(1) 12-shot VLS array – upper center mount

(1) 4-tube missile launcher array – aft mount

(12) Twin gatling 20mm railgun turrets – point defense mount-heavy

(28) Twin 12mm pulse laser turrets – point defense mount

(1) squadron of (16) X-wing space superiority starfighters

(4) 10mm pulse laser cannons

(2) mini-drone launchers w/ 10 micro quantum drones each

(2) internal micro-missile launchers w/ 14 medium-range micro-missiles each

(8) external multi-purpose hardpoints

(4) prototype X/F-310 'Star Sabre' advanced space superiority starfighters

(4) Puddlejumpers _(changes – shields, armor, nose-mounted twin lasers, increased overall length and tapered nose redesign including better cockpit visibility, improved system isolation and redundancy, short-range hyperdrive, improved stealth, and two micro point defense lasers)_

(6) F-92A _Warbird_-class Open Frame Extra Vehicular Combat units

Ground Forces

_Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF) composition: _

_(4) HAT-99A2 Mammoth Tanks_

_(8) M1A4 Abrams MBT_

_(12) M810 Scorpion-II AmMBT_

_(10) M8A2 Buford-II Strike Hovertank with MP missile pods_

_(4) M109A8 Paladin SPHVG_

_(2) M290 MLRS_

_(6) M18 ACE Hybrid bulldozer/crane/constructor_

_(20) EFV-III Assault Transport with variable terrain system_

_(1) M20A4 "God-Track" C&C APC_

_(8) M80A2 "Wolvar" SPHAA/PD Vehicle_

_550 Marines including HQ and support personnel _

_(12) Heavy Weapon Squads_

_(5) Anti-personnel_

_(4) Anti-Vehicle/Tank_

_(3) Anti-Air_

_(8) Mortar Squads_

_(2) Combat Engineer Squads_

_(2) Repair/Battlefield Recovery Platoons_

_(4) Marine Force Recon Squads_

_(10) MV-44 "Super Osprey" Tiltjet Transport_

_(6) HV-60 "Albatross" Assault Transport_

_(4) HAC-210B "Storm Lion" Assault Gunships_

_(8) HAC-180C "Storm Hawk" Heavy Gunships_

_(24) LAC-90C "Hornet" Light Gunships_

_ SPARTAN Teams: _

_ (Author's Note: The Tau'ri version of the Spartan program is radically different to that of the UNSC; first, there are no preceding Spartan-Is; second, the Spartans are chosen from preteen and young adult volunteers from both civilian and military backgrounds though said candidates are still genetically screened with the ATA gene being a bonus; third, the physical and mental training are set to the same standard as established by Mendez; fourth, the augmentation process now has a 100% success rate, as the 'inserts' are completely organic and safe to use, thanks to the Asgard's knowledge of bio-engineering from their cloning and genetic research, once the augmentation process is completed, the Spartans are kept isolated from unenhanced personnel until they have acclimated to their new bodies; fifth, the MJOLNIR powered armor system is not purely based on the game, the MJOLNIR is the CORE of the armor; it is augmented with nanotech musculature and support systems of the NanoSuit 2 from Crysis 2 though it's computer matrix is capital ship-grade, supported by a military-variant Class-C Dumb AI, along with jump-pack capability of the Zone Troopers of C&C fame albeit in a smaller, more efficient form which, in effect, gives the Spartan a very formidable look as well as capability, all the more so if the armor is customized to the wearer's preference. The armor is comprised of two layers of a very robust alloy of Titanium, Tritium, Naquadah and a pinch of Neutronium with a thermal dispersive ceramic material in between while the suit's 'muscle' fibers is made of a new synthetic material called Myomer, based off the Battletech series, which in turn is made of a flexible outer protective weave of Tritium fibers while the interior is made of a newly developed synthetic material that, when an electrical current is added, acts much like a near perfect simulacrum of a muscle fiber; the suit is protected by a modified Asgard-Alteran shield emitter that can be manipulated for a multitude of shapes, forms and functions while the suit is powered by a shrunk-down hybrid Fusion / Naquadah reactor, providing virtually unlimited power for long-endurance missions and intense fire-fights. The suit's hands have been modified with special super-conductors and chargers to provide unlimited recharging to Spartan-customized ranged and melee energy weapons. PS – As the Tau'ri have superior technologies and resources to tap into, along with two massive databases for references and research; the MJOLNIR, for the get-go, will NOT be going through the slow Mark series of upgrading unless Sam or Federation R&D have come up with something better.)_

Blue Team (Spartan Alpha Group)

Colonel John-117

Blue Team Leader / SPARTAN Alpha Group CO

A-class Smart AI: 'Cortana'

Cyber Warfare Specialist

Data Analysis

Team Combat Coordinator

Upgraded Communications Systems

Armor Style: Lion

Preferred Weapons: DXC-20B-S ICWS (defaulted in Assault Rifle configuration) with 40mm Grenade Launcher Attachment and Holographic Dual Scope***, M12A-S 'Spartan Laser', MP14B-S Laser PDW, Longsword-type Plasma Blade, Standard K-Bar Knife

Staff Sgt. Samuel-034

Explosive Expert

Expanded Analysis Matrix

Armor Style: Grizzly Bear

Preferred Weapons: MA7A-S Laser Assault Rifle with Shotgun Attachment and Holographic Dual Scope, C-12 Explosives, M7A Gauss Pistol, K-Bar type Plasma Blade, Standard K-Bar Knife

Lt. Linda-058

Sniper Marksman

Upgraded Optics

Armor Style: Eagle

Preferred Weapons: SRS100B Gauss Sniper Rifle (multi-caliber system) with 30x digital scope, optional suppressor, laser designator and directional microphone, M8A-S Laser SMG, Jammer Grenades, Standard K-Bar Knife

Staff Sgt. Kelly-087

Recon / Fast Attack Specialist

Upgraded Cloaking System

Armor Style: Cheetah with small Rabbit paint mark on left chest

Preferred Weapons: MA7A-S Laser Assault Rifle with 40mm Grenade Launcher and Holographic Dual Scope, Two M8A-S Laser SMGs, M7A-S Laser Pistol, Twin Shortsword-type Plasma Blades, Standard K-Bar Knife

Specialist Class William-043

Missile Weapon / CQC Specialist – Knife Expert

Upgraded Long and Short Range Sensors

Armor Style: Tiger

Preferred Weapons: M21A 'Spanker' MP Missile Launcher (default loadout: 3 dumbfire HEAT missiles; 3 reloads: 2 HEAT, 1 SAM), M100A Gauss Shotgun with Reflex Scope, Twin K-Bar type Plasma Blades, Twin Standard K-Bar Knives

Specialist Joshua-029

CQC, Scout / Sniper, Demolitions, Vehicle Specialist

Upgraded Sensor Array

Armor Style: Black Panther

Preferred Weapons: DXC-20A-S (defaulted in Battle Rifle configuration) with Shotgun Attachment with 3x ACOG Scope, C-12 Explosives, M100A Gauss Shotgun with Reflex Scope, MP14B-S Laser PDW, Twin Vibro Swords (deploys from forearm sheaths**), Twin Standard K-Bar Knives

Noble Team (Spartan Beta Group)

Captain Carter-259

Team Leader

Armor Style: Wolf

A-class Smart AI: 'Fenrir'

Tactical Advisor

Cyber Warfare Specialist

Team Combat Coordinator

Preferred Weapons: BR-56B-SB-S Laser Battle Rifle with 4x ACOG Sights and 40mm Grenade Launcher Attachment, Two M8A-S Laser SMGs, M7B-S Plasma Pistol, Standard K-Bar Knife

SFC Catherine-320

Intelligence Specialist

Armor Style: Kitsune

Preferred Weapons: DXC-20A-S (defaulted in Battle Rifle configuration) with Holographic Dual Scope and Shotgun Attachment, MA7C-S Plasma Carbine with Reflex Scope, M7A-S Laser Pistol, Standard K-Bar Knife

Sgt. Jun-266

Sniper Marksman

Armor Style: Cougar

Preferred Weapons: M120B Gauss Sniper Rifle**** with 30x electronic scope, laser designator and directional microphone, MA7C-S Laser Carbine with Holographic Sight, M7C-S Plasma Pistol, Standard K-Bar Knife

Sgt. Emile-239

Assault Specialist

Armor Style: Bull

Preferred Weapons: DXC-20A-S (defaulted in Shotgun configuration) with 40mm Grenade Launcher Attachment, Two M8B-S Plasma SMGs, M7A-S Laser Pistol, Standard K-Bar Knife

Sgt. Jorge-052

Heavy Weapons Specialist

Armor Style: Polar Bear

Preferred Weapons: DXC-20A-S (defaulted in Support MG configuration) with Shotgun Attachment and Holographic Dual Scope, M21A 'Spanker' MP Missile Launcher (default loadout: two dumbfire HEAT missiles; three reloads: two HEAT, one SAM), M7A-S Laser Pistol, Standard K-bar Knife

Lt. Ragnar-312

Infiltration, Scout, Pilot Specialist

Armor Style: Peregrine Falcon

Preferred Weapons: M24A Linear Assault Rifle with integral suppressor, Laser Carbine Attachment and Holographic Dual Scope, M100A Gauss Shotgun with Reflex Sight, Two M7S Suppressed Gauss Pistols, Standard K-Bar Knife

(Author's Note: The DXC-20 ICWS is my version of the Republic Commando's DC-17, the weapon utilizes a hybrid bullpup/forward magazine design; the forward receiver is for projectile-loaded magazine and heavy support energy mags while the bullpup receiver handles the weapon's standardized energy mags though this is removed as the Spartan variant draws power directly from the armor's reactor; however the forward receiver still remains as the Spartan can still utilize the projectile component of the weapon; the primary body of the weapon functions as a receiver unit while the modules define its role. It is also equipped with multiple receiver rails to accommodate the user's preferences and mission objectives along with secondary support weapons such as grenade launchers and shotguns. The DXC-20 comes in several configuration modules: Assault Rifle – similar role as the MA7, Battle Rifle – similar to the BR56, Shotgun – duh!, Gauss Rifle – 20mm Railgun-type Sniper Rifle/Light Anti-Vehicular Rifle, Gauss Carbine – 8mm Railgun-type Assault Rifle, Support MG – Short-barrel GPMG, Tank Buster – Mini Spartan Laser and Stunner – Nonlethal neuro-disruptive pulse laser.)

* - _(Cheesy, I know that! It felt appropriate for one of Jack 'eccentric' personality.)_

_ **__ - Think Optimus Prime's deployment of his swords in Transformers 1 & 2 and you get the general idea…_

_ *** - __A Holographic Dual Scope is a combination of a standard holographic sight with a side-flip 3x scope, giving the shooter two types of sights without having to change out._

_ **** - __Think of this weapon as a cross between the Tau Rail Rifle and Fortune's (from Metal Gear: Patriots or something like that) Assault Railgun...designed to be able to compact itself for ease of mobility, similar to Mass Effect weapons._


	2. Chapter 2

I do not own Stargate, Stargate: Atlantis, Halo, Babylon 5, etc., etc.

I Hate Quantum Mechanics!

Chapter 2: Cavalry

The _Excalibur_ had moved to the very front of the fleet replacing the heavily damaged _Sorceress_ and supporting Ivanova's right side. The _Titans_ had taken damage and one of its Particle cannons had overloaded and suffered a meltdown due to overuse, but overall the ship was still fighting and Ivanova wasn't going to surrender her place at the head of the attack. A pair of _Omega_'s sent laser beams streaming past a few hundred meters besides her adding their power to the attack. The wedge formation had worked and although losses in the leading elements were heavy they had managed to deliver Sheridan's new battleships into the heart of the enemy defenses. The Warlocks had received the most attention during the attack, the Drakh clearly recognizing their abilities and directing as much force as they could against them, forces which would have been better used against the _Victory_ and _Excalibur._ With the _Sorceress_ falling back it left just the _Titans_ and the _Hecate_ operational and fighting, with Minbari cruisers staying close by and the rest of the Earth units just behind.

"Captain, General Denisov is sending new orders." Commander Morton checked his earpiece. "We are to break formation and provide cover for the two prototype destroyers."

"Confirm those orders." She replied, it was standard procedure to make sure combat orders came from an authentic source.

"Subchannel I.D confirmed." Lieutenant Patel spoke from the main comms station.

"Acknowledge, Helm move us in behind _Excalibur_ and let the _Hecate_ watch the _Victory._"

Ivanova's decision was sound, the _Excalibur_ was the closest ship to her, but she knew that if she analyzed the decision she would find that she was deploying her ship based on her desire to watch her old Captain's back. Captain Krauss of the _Hecate_ was a good officer but frankly the only person Ivanova trusted to watch Sheridan's back was herself, and as the _Excalibur_ pulled away she made damn sure she was right behind it.

The head of the fleet had punched through to the planet killer and now crossed inside the massive structure, firing on all sides as the Drakh ships closed the range and intensified the attack desperate to stop them driving further forward.

"Drakh ships on all sides Captain!" Rossdale yelled from the weapons station.

"Target anything heading for the _Excalibur_ as a priority!" Ivanova stated. "Don't let them damage the flagship."

Three Thunderbolts were destroyed by a sweeping beam from a Drakh raider, a second later that same ship was cut down by a Whitestar. Inside the Death-cloud the combat ranges decreased dramatically with Drakh ships engaging at very short ranges. The _Titans'_ interceptor grid was firing constantly, knocking down incoming pulse fire and enemy ships that got too close. It's main guns continued engaging bigger threats, a strike from four of its turrets converging on a Cruiser moving on the _Excalibur_ while its remaining particle cannon claimed another victim.

The two advanced warships were fighting furiously, their weapons in near constant use and a long trail of broken ships marking their line of advance. Earthforce had lost over a hundred destroyers so far and countless fighters, with allied forces taking equally heavy losses. The Drakh were a formidable opponent, while not quite as powerful as the Minbari they were far more advanced than humanity and it was only through skilled tactics and unwavering determination that the older Earth warships were still fighting, even the newer ships had taken a beating but continued to advance. If anything Drakh losses were even more staggering, the sudden concentration of force had smashed their battle line and now threatened their most valuable possession, their old master's weapon of ultimate terror. They redoubled their efforts, driving the older Earth Destroyers back and leaving the prototypes dangerously exposed and all but alone.

"We're losing our escorts!" Morton warned as an _Omega_ exploded spectacularly, its reactor feeding the forward guns even as it went into melt down.

Ivanova checked the displays, they were only covered by fighters and a duo of _Whitestars_ now and those craft were being heavily engaged. The nearest heavy warships were a trio of Minbari warcruisers and a Destroyer group battling forward but making little ground against increased Drakh presence. She uttered a soft curse; they were going to be in serious trouble.

"Four enemy cruisers locking on!" Rossdale shouted across. "Sixty degrees off the port bow!"

"All batteries respond, concentrate interceptors!" Ivanova ordered, the odds did not look healthy. The point defense guns fired, as did the gatling interceptors on the nearby _Excalibur,_ together they formed a dense enough screen to force the smaller ships to break away or risk destruction, but the four cruisers pressed through the fire with superficial damage.

"Brace for impact!"

The crew obeyed their Captain and took hold of the chairs and consoles, tightening seat belts and tauten their muscles. The tactical displays showed the enemy ships less than a hundred miles away, the _Titans_ guns turning rapidly to engage and a flight of Thunderbolts moving in with anti ship missiles, but none of it was going to be quick enough to prevent them firing first.

A pair of blue beams lanced into side of the warship, punching it sideways and flinging any unfastened material into the left hand side wall. The _Excalibur_ also took two hits, though its more advanced armor was better able to withstand the impact. In return Sheridan's ship sliced though one of the cruisers with its turreted guns, the green beams carving it up with no apparent difficulty.

Ivanova's _Warlock_ also returned fire, rail gun rounds smashing through one of the attacking cruisers while the turreted dual purpose cannons fired on a second, a stuttering fire of pulse cannon blasts followed by a two second laser burst, followed again by pulses, a steady pattern designed to slice through armor and then blast open the damaged sections.

The Drakh still came on, suffering heavy damage but not retreating. A lance of blue energy caught the _Titans_ on the join between its advanced armor and its more conventional materials, boring through and triggering an explosion in one of the fuel stores for the ship's fighters. The fires engulfed the main hanger bay, requiring the forward doors to be opened and the atmosphere to be vented, extinguishing the fire.

One of the Drakh ships finally succumbed, a final volley of pulse fire ripping away its forward section. The _Excalibur_ finished off a second while the third found itself entering the firing arc for Ivanova's particle cannon, and with great satisfaction she ordered it destroyed.

"Damage?" she asked sharply.

"Hangar deck heavily damaged and venting." Morton stated. "Heavy buckling across the hull and it looks like our last particle cannon is offline."

With a harsh snarl Ivanova noted the weapon had overloaded, installing such powerful weapons on a mobile platform had been expected to be problematic, the Warlock class didn't have the dedicated power reserves and cooling systems of the GOD satellites, there just wasn't enough space and the miniaturized systems were still experimental, and it would appear flawed.

"Divert power to secondary weapons." She glanced at the tactical display, it seemed there was a sea of enemies closing on them and their reinforcements were still bogged down trying to fight through to them, perhaps a dozen _Omegas_ had broken through and were heavily engaged behind them. Starfuries and a few Minbari fighters were keeping Drakh raiders from striking the two prototype destroyers, but they were still badly outnumbered if not out fought.

More Drakh attack ships raced by, strafing the _Titans_. One fell to the defense grid but not before stripping away one of the gun turrets. The remaining weapons maintained a continuous fire, tearing down a Cruiser but not halting the swelling tide. They didn't have enough firepower to break through the enemy lines to damage their target, a control centre for the entire Death cloud.

"More enemy cruisers on our aft!" Morton shouted. "They're moving in on the _Excalibur_."

"You know what to do." Ivanova ordered, the _Excalibur_ was their best chance of winning, it had to survive. Sheridan had to survive.

The _Titans_ altered course, swinging around to broadside the incoming Drakh ships with its maximum firepower and block their attack on Sheridan's vessel. The _Hecate_ followed suit, streams of flame gushing from its decks; she was in just as bad a condition as the _Titans_ but at least had one functional particle cannon. She turned fully around to target the Drakh forces with its primary weapon, energy mounting in its muzzle.

Once more the two _Warlocks_ fired, and once more Drakh ships were shredded by the attacks but didn't stop. Cruisers and raiders pressed forward firing on the two destroyers and punching holes through them both. The _Hecate_ fired its particle cannon, destroying two cruisers which were moving too close to each other while its pulse cannons filled space with salvoes of high energy.

"Drakh ships accelerating, Captain...they're heading right for us!" Rossdale warned.

"Evasive action!" Ivanova yelled in horror. "Continue firing, brace yourselves!"

The Drakh ships held their collision course, both Warlocks finished off another cruiser each before they got too close, the _Hecate's_ Particle cannon recharging just a few seconds too slowly. A suicidal Drakh cruiser ploughed into the heavy destroyer crumpling its forward armor and sending twisted debris slamming through the insides of the Earth ship. The _Titans_ meanwhile dropped down relative to the Drakh, its cannons pounding the Drakh ship as it approached. Ivanova breathed heavily as she watched the distance on the sensor readings cycling down, great chunks were being carved from the incoming ship but it wasn't slowing down.

"Three hundred kilometers." Morton reported. "Two hundred."

She felt totally helpless, for all her experience in battle, for all the times she had trained on this ship and honed its crew, for all those years in Earthforce none of it counted for much right now, the only things that mattered were how fast the guns could fire without melting and how quickly the engines could get them out of the way.

"One hundred kilometers," her XO kept reading, clouds of atmosphere and debris were falling away from the cruiser under the strikes. "Fifty, ten!" The cruisers forward hull ignited as a plasma pulse detonated its forward weapons capacitor, tearing a long rent in the enemy ships hull.

"Hold on!" shouted Ivanova.

A rail gun shot burst the Drakh cruiser's reactor, enveloping it in a massive ball of destructive energy an instant before it would have hit the _Titans._ The explosion rocked the Earth force destroyer and showered it with debris from the Drakh ship like a shotgun blast, the inside of the ship rang like a bell in a hailstorm as countless impacts punched the side armor, some pierced it but thankfully most merely embedded themselves in the thick composites. When the energy dimmed the _Titans_ was still there, its flank blackened and looking like a pin cushion, leaking white plumes of atmosphere but still holding the ship together.

Ivanova settled back in her chair, the lights of the bridge dimmer as power was redirected to combat systems. She noticed the artificial gravity felt far lighter and saw in the corner of her eye Lieutenant Patel extinguishing a fire burning through one of the rearmost consoles. The guns were still firing, the ship was still moving and they weren't currently spaced, which was all she needed to know.

"Resume course!" she coughed a little on the acrid smoke, inhaling a lung full of the foul mixture of soot and burnt plastics. "Keep us on the _Excalibur!"_

"Captain, we've lost the _Hecate_." Commander Morton said in a heavy voice. The video images showed their sister ship a mangled wreck, its entire forward half a twisted mess of human and Drakh parts and with only its engine block recognizable as a component of a Warlock. It fell back on fire and out of control, its final fate unreadable.

"We've got our orders." Ivanova said forcefully, she needed to keep the crew watching their jobs and not thinking about the loss of their comrades. "Look for targets, fire at will."

A swarm of Drakh raiders swept down on the two prototypes, aiming to strike them from the back. The aft guns on the two heavy warships fired, cutting down scores of the light ships but there were plenty more following. The _Titans_ added her guns, setting up a crossfire with the _Excalibur's_ aft batteries and emptying the sky of attackers. The _Victory_ was not so fortunate; _Titans_, heavily engaged and the _Hecate_ a burning wreck there was no one to help cover the ship's back, and a few Drakh ships made it through the barrage to tear into the power linkages to the great ship's main cannon, the barely noticeable jet of flame taking the allied fleet's best weapon out of the battle, only the _Excalibur_ now possessed a weapon which could hurt the planet killer, and for Captain Anderson on board the _Victory_, defeat seemed inevitable unless he took drastic action.

The battle was turning against the allies and they had just one chance left to try and secure victory, in a few minutes it would be too late. The opportunity would not come again, and with Drakh ships moving in once more on Sheridan and Anderson, Captain Ivanova moved her wounded ship to block their path one final time, because if she failed to stop them there wouldn't be enough time for the prototypes to recover and the planet killer would claim another victim. She'd seen it happen before, she knew the fate that awaited a world lost in this weapon's embrace and she would not allow it. There was no one left for her back home, no mother or father, no brother, no kindred soul to grow old with, nothing. Her life was empty of everything except her duty to Earth, and her love for her friends, and it was that more than anything which set her resolve. Let the Drakh come, she wouldn't give them another inch of Earth space while her heart still beat in her chess. The battered warship fired again from its blackened cannons, defiant even now, and the Drakh charged forward into their fire. The breaking point had been reached; all it needed was for one side to shatter first.

President Sheridan was growing more and more angry and frustrated, the way ahead of the _Excalibur_ was crammed with Drakh ships, too many for the two _Victory_ class warships to punch through alone and although the cloud was filling with Earth force ships they wouldn't be here in time.

"Sheridan, standard weapons fire isn't getting through." The gruff voice of Captain Anderson announced across the bridge speakers, his command was holding to their right trying to punch through along with the _Excalibur_.

"I know." Sheridan said brusquely, another Drakh cruiser fell to his guns but more arrived to take their place.

"If you fire your main gun it'll put you out of commission for one minute." Anderson said. "We'll cover you until you can navigate clear."

"At this range all we'll do is destroy some of those ships."

"Exactly, it'll clear the way so we can use our main gun. Just open the door Mr President, we'll take it from there."

Sheridan wasn't sure, but he was out of options. They rest of the fleets heavy ships were still coming up and the Drakh would be able to hold them back for as long as it took to deploy the planet killer and destroy Earth. It was his only choice.

"Standby to fire main gun."

Garabaldi adds, "And hope for a miracle."

"Mr President, we have multiple new contacts arriving behind us, moving in very fast!" The sensor officer suddenly spoke up.

"Ours?" Sheridan frowned, he glanced at the readings and didn't recognize anything about the new arrivals.

"It isn't Drakh, basic design could be one of ours, but they're moving a hell of a lot faster than anything we should have."

"We can't worry about that now, target main gun and fire on my command; if it's hostile, the fleet can stop it."

_Excalibur_ angled its bow and began diverting power for a full strike, the _Victory_ shooting down a pair of Drakh ships trying to interfere with the process. Two more Drakh ships were angling to hit the _Excalibur_ before she could fire her main gun, hoping to disrupt her aim but before they could open fire, two golden streaks fly past the _Excalibur_ so fast that the two Drakh ships were destroyed before he actually realized it. Shaking his head and disregarding what just happened as irrelevant, he focuses his thoughts, the Vorlon based weapon would probably have the ability to destroy the planet killer's control center, but Sheridan would still have preferred to be closer. He hoped Anderson knew what the hell he was doing.

"Mr. President, you need to hear this." One of his officers said hastily.

"Kind of in the middle of something here." Sheridan replied curtly.

"It's from one of the unknown ship, it's hailing us on an open channel, sir, in English."

"English? They're ours?" Most ships from alien powers communicated through Iterlac, a simplified artificial language. If it was speaking English then the crew had to be either humans of allies of humanity. He hoped. "Let's hear it."

"I say again, this is the Tau'ri Federation Starship _Prometheus_ to defending fleet, come in."

"One of our names." Sheridan murmured before replying while shuddering slightly at the name, since it was a ship named _Prometheus_ triggered the devastating Earth-Mimbari War. "This is President John Sheridan, watch our firing arcs, we're about to engage the enemy with a new weapon."

"Confirmed, Mr. President, we're ready to engage with long-range weapons of our own, we have a few dozen enhanced nukes and antimatter ordnance ready for delivery along with more powerful ordnance on standby and the means to deliver them rapidly to the enemy."

"Enhanced?" Sheridan wondered. "How enhanced?"

"150 megatons for our smallest to 200 gigatons for our largest," the voice jollily replied, along with a touch of eagerness, Sheridan's eyes widening at the last bit of information. "We've been monitoring transmissions and scanning the battle, we know you're down to your last chance, we got the technology and the firepower to make it count in spades."

"Captain Anderson, did you hear that?" Sheridan asked.

"We heard, but Mr. President we're down to a few minutes. Whatever you're going to do, do it now."

"President Sheridan," the commander of the new fleet spoke solemnly. "We can do this, and we can do it fast enough so if we do screw up, you'll still have time to try something else. Earth is still our home, let us help save her."

Sheridan sighed, his head was still too full of questions to truly trust these new arrivals, but at this point there wasn't much they could do to make it worse. "Alright, take your ships in at an oblique angle, we'll make sure there are no ships in your path, after that you've got two minutes before we go to plan B. Think you can make it time?"

"Actually, Mr. President, why don't you let us handle the rest? Sit back and enjoy the show, sir...and uh, try not to blink..."

"What do you...?"

"This is General O'Neill to Task Force Null-Alpha, prep synchronized salvo on my mark...three...two...one...MARK!"

"Mr. President, I'm reading massive power spikes on all the new arrivals! They're firing!"

"What's the range between them and the nearest Drakh ships?" Garibaldi asks.

"Just under 500,000 klicks..."

Sheridan and Garibaldi look up in time to watch the new arrivals, looking like small silvery specks at this distance, simultaneously open fire, both blink one moment, then the next...

"Oh...my...God...Mr. President...sixty Drakh ships have been destroyed, my sensors show a single shot per target..." The sensor officer gasps in disbelief.

"What's their disposition now?" Sheridan asks.

"13 of the 27 ships are positioning themselves between Earth and the Death Cloud, sir; I think they're going act as a back-stop to prevent any Drakh ships from breaking through...the rest are...ARE THEY CRAZY?"

"What is it?" Sheridan calls out worriedly.

The officer turns to look at Sheridan in the eye and spoke with an almost awed tone, "Mr. President...they're charging straight in."

Jack closed his eyes for a second, inhaled deeply, and broke into a broad predatory grin. By his experience back in the good ole' days of the SGC, Earth often had to fight with limited and thinly stretched resources, now he had a honest to god fleet to use against an enemy although things have settled down back home after kicking the Ori out of the Milky Way Galaxy..._Does everybody in the galaxy have a beef with humanity or something?_ He groused to himself. He activates the _Prometheus_' 1MC system on impulse as he knew the 'kids' needed a bit of a pep-talk from the 'old man'.

"This is General O'Neill, now I realize this has turned into an uber weird day for most of you though the SGC vets among you should know weird is just on par back in the good old days...anyway, this was supposed to be a shakedown cruise of our new Archangel-class Battleship and instead we end up in the middle of a war in an alternate version, and future, of Earth. But this is what we signed on for; this is what we all knew might happen one way or another. This version of Earth is in danger and it is our sworn duty to go and defend our planet, doesn't matter what time or universe it might be found. This is our fight now, let's do what we all joined up for and keep our world safe. Now let's kick some ass!" He taps a button on his command chair, shutting the system down.

"Hanger bays are ready to launch, General." Ops made her report. "All X-wings loaded up with a load of two -B anti-ship missiles and four dual micro-missile pods."

"Launch them and have them stick close to us until we're approaching the primary target, their job is to saturate the control center with enough nukes to light up half of the planet. Order _Tiger's Claw_ and _Shadow_ _Hunter_ to scramble their squadrons to assist the defending fleet; I want them loaded for bear with both anti-ship and anti-fighter ordnance. Have _Archangel_ launch her birds too, I want them aggressively forming a CAP perimeter where the _Mechanicus_ and _Tech_ _Priest_ can safely bring in crippled ships and patch them up." He knew that the X-wing pilots were straining at the leash to test their movie-inspired birds in a real combat situation. "Teal'c, status of our weapons?"

Teal'c, who over the weapons systems station from it's assigned officer, kept his eyes on his station's holo-panel while making his report. "All nuclear missiles are armed and ready for launch as are the _Horizon-II_ missiles, General O'Neill, the Asgard Plasma Cannon and Linear Ion Cannons have recharged and ready to fire once again, all railgun turrets have been loaded with naquadah-potassium rounds, all pulse laser turrets have been primed and are ready to engage hostile craft, primary and auxiliary targeting systems have been linked to sensors and are actively locked on and tracking their assigned targets."

"Sensors, keep your eyes peeled, anything, and I mean _ANYTHING_, that looks weird, funny or just plain stands out, call it out immediately, I hate getting caught with my pants down and...oh, yeah! Have _Archangel_, _Tiger's_ _Claw_, _Shadow_ _Stalker_ and our frigates moved into position?"

"Yes, General and they just reported in, sir, 'in position'." The officer replies quickly.

"Well, there's only one thing left to do...Comms, spread the word: 'we're going in...'"

The Tau'ri ships charge straight into the Death Cloud, _Prometheus_, _Daedalus_, _Apollo_, _Hyperion_ and _Persephone_, primary and secondary batteries blazing, at the head of the spear, forming a sharp arrowhead while the rest follow behind in double lines, _Prometheus_' squadron of X-wings form into wing pairs and surround the _Prometheus_, while _Daedalus_' and _Apollo's_ own F302 squadrons assume similar formations with their motherships, long range beams of plasma and ion energy as well as 750-ton kinetic slugs lancing out at the Drakh, each hit either instantly destroying or severely crippling their targets while the fighters stay within their parent ships' protective shadows, the Drakh fleet diverts a part of their fleet at these new and well-armed interlopers as they could not allow their plan to fail...

Jack watches as the first wave of enemy ships move up to intercept with a good sized 'cloud' of their starfighters analogues in support, he nods at Teal'c, his fingers dance across the holographic panel with a veteran's speed and control, the various light weapons of the _Prometheus_ and the rest of the task force immediately engaging at a range that surprises the enemy; the small pulse lasers and railgun turrets sweep the space around them, the volatile NaqPo rounds literally shattering the enemy Raiders as they hit their targets, detonating with massive force, while the small but powerful pulse lasers turn crystalline armor into molten glass, stunning the enemy long enough for the _Daedalus_ and _Apollo_ squadrons to pounce on them, the one-two punch of the lethal point defenses and fighters all but wiping out most if not all of the enemy's protective fighter cover; the protective hatches of the _Prometheus_', _Daedalus_' and _Apollo's_ VLS arrays flip open and launch six missiles each but Teal'c keeps the _Prometheus_' _Horizon-II_ missiles in reserve for their primary target, he also set the Linear Ion Cannons to Pulse configuration and the Plasma Cannon to Pulse Beam configuration, allowing the Prometheus to dogfight like an oversized starfighter as she charged on towards her target. He knew that this design philosophy is true for most of the Tau'ri ship designs with the exception of the _Archangel_- and _Aurora__-II_ classes as they were designed to act as the solid centers and anchors of the fleet while the _Hyperion_-class acts as the heavily armored spearhead though the _Archangel_-class had been designed for this role as well.

Respectively, this amounted to a grand total of 18 nuclear missiles, and to most people, this is a very small amount to use in a battle, however, each has a yield of roughly 2 gigatons...and the missiles are spread out in a way that their combined blast radii would cover the entirety of the enemy vanguard.

However, this volley of missiles masks the launch of the second wave of long-range ordnance, the drones…

The Drakh vanguard makes the mistake of ignoring the incoming missiles in their haste and zeal to deal death upon these new interlopers, lances of return fire arch towards the charging Tau'ri task force as they finally close the distance sufficiently to be able to accurately hit their targets...only to watch in shock as their beams are absorbed by bubbles of energy that flare into the visible spectrum as they disperse and deflect oncoming weapons fire.

_ Energy Shields!_

The Drakh fleet commander bristles in anger as this technology was something not even they have yet to develop, the Brakiri have developed something similar as have the Masters and the hated Vorlons but it was obvious that these interlopers are equipped with a type of energy shielding that was far superior to the Brakiri as lances of green energy lash out and strike their targets, their shields absorb and deflect the attacks with ease…

But the weapons...

The weapons the interlopers use are extremely powerful; it appeared that their primary armament is a plasma-based weapon system, one that has a formidably long range and power, supplemented with both ion-based and projectile-based weapons that are as equally devastating as the plasma-based one but it appeared that they also still use nuclear weapons as formation-destroyers and area saturation weapons…

The missiles swoop in towards their target, the point defense weapons of the Drakh vanguard engage them, three are destroyed but most slip past the defensive fire unscathed due to their speed and passive stealth field...they hit their targets dead center...

"WHOA!" The Excalibur's sensor officer shouts out as his sensors go crazy at the massive nuclear detonations...

"What's going on?" Sheridan calls out.

"Mr. President, each of those nukes detonated with the force of two gigatons..." The sensor officers reports with awe in his voice.

Garibaldi made a long low whistle and replies flippantly, "Now that's what I call an explosive argument."

Sheridan grins then frowns in consternation, "You got that right but how in the universe did they enhance those nukes to be so powerful?"

"Good question but that's something that's going to have to wait until we kick the Drakh out of Earth orbit."

A constellation of brilliant suns explodes into existence amongst the Drakh vanguard as the fifteen nuclear missiles detonate against their target, the immense blast wave from each warhead overlapping each other, destroying the vanguard with forces their armor was not capable of withstanding; the nuclear blasts burn out, leaving nothing but shattered hulks…and four heavily damaged destroyer-analogs who concentrate their fire on the _Prometheus_ before they succumb to their wounds and explode.

The beam weapons impacted on the smaller ship's shields at a steep angle, the Asgard-Alteran hybrid shield systems absorbing the energy but, by happenstance, all four beams had struck in the same section of shielding, causing a minor flux in the shield's harmonics, allowing a severely weakened beam through, striking part of the armor there but the Trinium-Naquadah-Titanium alloy easily withstood the hit, suffering little more than a slight warming and some scorching though enough kinetic energy was transferred for the strike to be felt by everyone on the _Prometheus_…

The Drakh commander saw the strike from his position but was disappointed by lack of visible damage; his command ship's sensors were more powerful than the standard, allowing him to monitor every part of the battlefield, down to the smallest detail.

The interlopers' armor was as formidable as their shields, it would seem, even a significantly weakened strike would have slagged the metal protecting that area but the alloys used by the interlopers seemed to be comprised of much sterner materials…in fact, his sensors picked up an oddly familiar signature from the metal, a quick series of taps initiates a comparison from the database their masters left behind…something the equivalent of a human snarl passes through the mandibles of the creature as the database showed the material in question as nek'tal'vre _(As there's no formal canon language stuff for B5, I will have to make stuff up as I go.)_, also known nethrin to the Mimbari; this instantly rang an alert in the commander's mind, for according to the database, the material has powerful and extremely dangerous properties, that if properly harnessed would make any race powerful beyond compare...a swift review of the sensor logs showed matching nek'tal'vre energy frequencies coming from ALL of the interlopers' ships as well as the recently detonated nuclear weapons which meant that they have mastered the use of the nek'tal'vre element to a degree surpassing even their masters...

With a series of sharp chitters, the Drakh commander orders half of his reserve ships to attack the interlopers with the exception of the Plague ships and their escorts as it looks like that they will be needed after all; Mimbar will simply have to wait it's turn for death…

Only to watch as dozens of ships die as a swarm of golden fire strike dead on, their launch and travel shielded by the exploding nuclear weapons; the command ship's sensors show that the new weapons were unique, powerful partially phased plasma-sheathed missiles...

_Phased weaponry!_

This made the interlopers far more dangerous now, the creature orders another quarter of its fleet to attack...

But what the creature didn't realize is that it was unintentionally splitting its forces to the point that an exploitable gap was slowly opening...a gap large enough to be exploited by fast-moving, heavily armed and armored warships...

Something that the Archangel-class and the Hyperion-class were designed for...

"Damage report!" Jack demanded.

"Negligible damage to the shields though there was a minor fluctuation that allowed some fire through," The slightly scared tone of the Ops officer replied. "That energy blast was significantly depleted; it only scorched our armor, sir, no penetration detected. They got some interesting weapons tech, sir, but it isn't as advanced or packs as much punch as Asgard tech."

Jack grinned, if the Asgard were still around they would have called it inferior technology but he wasn't going to let his guard down just because he's got better tech...

In fact, Jack smirks slightly as he could almost hear Hermoid comment something about inferior technology if you listen hard enough...

"Order our X-wings to stick close and stay inside our shadow until we're close..." The torrent of orders abruptly stops as Jack's experience-honed sixth sense starts to gong loud and clear. "Sensors, give me a overhead view of the battlefield and put it up in the command chair monitor and main holoprojector!"

The ensign responds crisply and taps a series of commands on his holopanel, "Coming up now, sir!"

A clear transparent panel unfolds from the side of the command chair, positioning itself exactly to 45 degrees of O'Neill's line of sight while a squat cylindrical projector elevates from its recessed housing in the middle of the bridge's floor and flares to life a real-time holographic battle map; Jack immediately notes the movement and position of the enemy fleet as well as the positions of his ships and the ships of the defending fleet.

"Comms, use a laser comm line and send a message to the _Archangel_: Surge forward with the _Victory_ and _Excalibur_ and target the control center; we'll clear the way for them...and also tell them that, on my authority, to use the ZPR..."

The bridge became relatively silent at THAT order as everyone knew what that acronym meant…in fact, the very mention of that device often sent chills down most people's spines…with the noted exception of the SGC veterans as this 'baby' was General O'Neill's insane brainchild…

Universally, the younger members of the crew reach under their seats and strap on their crash helmets, Jack merely blinks in surprise but shrugs it off and focuses on the battle at hand.

"Comms, pass the word to the task force: 'staggered fighting retreat, pull the enemy fleet away from the objective' and patch me through to the _Hyperion_ and _Persephone_, I got a job for them..."

"Mr. President, the captain of the _Archangel_ is on the line. Audio only though." The _Excalibur_'s communications officer calls out from his station.

"Put it up." Sheridan orders.

"Mr. President," came the voice in a clear, firm manner from the overhead speakers, "This is Alexander Murphy Jr., captain of the _Archangel_, there's been a change of plans, Mr. President; the three of us, _Archangel_, _Excalibur_ and _Victory_ will take out the planet killer's control center, the rest of the task force will draw most of the enemy fleet away from us while the _Hyperion_ and _Persephone_ will initiate a micro-jump and rendezvous us to reinforce our flanks while the Prometheus' fighter squadron will micro-jump ahead and soften up the target."

"And then what?"

"We need you to cover us for at least sixty seconds as we need that long to prepare a special round for our Super MAC array."

"What kind of special round and how close do we need to get?"

"A round with a prototype zero-point core…with the expected output of roughly in the order of over 40 exatons or more, and we only need to get within 400,000 km of the planet killer's command center in order to target it accurately."

The _Excalibur_'s bridge was utterly silenced by that declaration.

All Garibaldi could say was "This I gotta see..."

Sheridan snaps out of his shock and starts giving orders, "Comms, inform Captain Anderson of the change of plans and have him take the _Archangel_'s left flank, inform Captain Ivanova and the rest of our escorts to start falling back, I don't want them caught in the blast wave, especially if the special round the _Archangel_'s firing actually does have that kind of explosive bang; Helm, move us to her right flank and prepare to bring us to maximum acceleration, we're going to need every ounce of speed we got in our engines if the speed of rest of the Archangel's friends is anything to go by; Weaps, redivert power from the Vorlon weapon to our main neutron cannons and secondary batteries but keep a reserve charge on standby just in case."

"Aye sir." Came the communal response of the crew.

Sheridan knew that Ivanova was not going to be happy with the order but the _Titans_ did not have the necessary speed and acceleration the _Victory_-class has in abundance though now he suspected that the _Archangel_ had a lot more horses under her hood, as the old Earth saying goes...

And he was right, the second all three ships are in formation, the _Archangel_'s engines flare even brighter, as powerful ion drives accelerate the massive warship to speeds that should have belonged to smaller ships, the two _Victory_-class warships struggling to keep pace with their 'more advanced' gravimetric engines.

Sheridan could only grumble quietly, "Damn, that is one fast ship."

The _Archangel_ holds her fire for as long as possible, not wanting to draw attention on to itself unless necessary, the _Victory_ and _Excalibur_ mimicking the lead ship as their respective commanders realizing her intentions...

Jack smirks as he sees the enemy fleet maneuvering to attack, one section to pin him and the task force to one place while another section hits them from the flank; a good idea but not good enough for one of O'Neill's caliber and experience, the task force has fallen back according to his orders, drawing most of the enemy fleet away from protecting the planet killer's command center while the _Hyperion_ and _Persephone_, along with the _Prometheus_' X-wing squadron in support, have executed a micro-jump to rendezvous with the Archangel strike force, their job being to hold the penetration corridor, giving the Archangel enough room to use her Super MAC and fire the ZPR while the X-wings charge ahead and neutralize the defenses around the planet killer's control center.

So far, he has managed to draw his 'patch' of the action towards the outer edges of the planet killer in what could be called as an 'atomic' formation, the _Solar Storm_, _Nova Storm_, _Daedalus_ and _Apollo_ as the positively charged core, the _Athena_-class destroyers and the _Prometheus_ as the orbiting electrons. Taking advantage of the range of their heaviest weapons but keeping the drones as a reserve and surprise for any surprises the Drakh have in store for them…

His musings are interrupted by a shout from his Communications officer, "Sir, Archangel Strike Force reports beginning attack run, our X-wings have boosted ahead to soften up the target."

"Respond with message received and good luck...oh, and add personal note to Capt. Alex: 'You better bring your ass back in one piece or your mom will kill me!' End note."

_(Que anime sweatdrop for the crew…and a sigh of long-suffering for SG-1)_

Alex sighs quietly as he read through the message his uncle and superior officer sent as his mini task force closes the gap on the Planet Killer's control center, and then recenters his focus back to the battle at hand, "Weaps, status on the Super MAC and the ZPR?"

"Super MAC fully charged and ready, reserve charge at 83%, ZPR is in the chamber and primed, detonation systems set to 10-nanosecond delayed detonation, reserve standard round in position and waiting for follow-up firing…Achilles is now entering maximum firing range of 400,000 klicks…permission to fire Super MAC, sir!" Apprehension evident in his voice as the Weapon Systems Officer reports in.

"Hold fire until we hit 380,000 klicks!" Alex orders firmly though he is also apprehensive of the ZPR as he recalls the briefing by Aunt Sam…just remembering what it covered still gave him the chills!

_Sam – The ZPR is a modified MAC round designed to carry an unstable shaped zero-point charge the size of a Coke can which has the estimated explosive power of over 40 exatons but I have been wrong before…_

_ Destroyer Captain – What could possibly happen when it goes 'wrong?'_

_ Sam (in chillingly cheerful tone of voice) – Chances are that two possible scenarios may occur: a) The zero-point charge's physical shielding could crack at impact and unleash a mini-supernova powerful enough to destroy everything within a 3 AU radius or b) create a short-lived super black hole that would suck everything into it within a 30 light minute radius._

_ Everyone in the briefing room gave the offending captain the 'you-just-HAD-to-ask' look._

_ Sam – However…if everything does go 'right', we could have a special weapon capable of shattering planets with a single shot but only as a last resort…_

Alex is knocked out of his reverie when his communications officer calls out, "Sir, the Prometheus' X-wing squadron has reached the target: initiating strike run!"

Colonel Elisha Sinclair, callsign "Twitchy", grins broadly within the confines of her lightweight armored helmet as she loops, rolls and flips in her new BAE F-65A X-wing starfighter, her four Rolls Royce ion drives purring like cats rolling in catnip, as she and her squadron close in on the Planet Killer's control center. She had to admit that finding the damn thing took a bit of time as the target looked like all the other nodules around it but what give it way was all the weapons emplacements and heavy armor surrounding it but now came the best part of her job…blowing shit up!

She pushes a button on her throttle and starting giving orders to her squadron, "Red squadron, arm one, repeat, one antiship missile and take out those weapons emplacements, then follow them up with two mini-drones and soften up that heavy armor; Achilles is coming up fast behind us with her Super MAC and the ZPR...I DO NOT want to be anywhere near by when it goes boom so have your navi-comps prepare multiple hyperspace vectors as a precaution."

Affirmative replies quickly comes through her helmet's speakers as she calls out, "Red Squadron, begin attack run...NOW!"

With the deftness of experience and training, Elisha's thumb rapidly goes through her starfighter's store of weapons until the indicator marker rested on one of the two -B anti-ship nuclear missiles and selects it with a push of a button; her HUD, projected on to her forward windshield, shifts configuration to allow her to begin targeting her assigned emplacement, the 'smart' guidance system on the -B swiftly going through the process of locking on to the emplacement.

Ten seconds later, her HUD turns red and her speakers hum a solid tone, indicating a solid lock-on…

She keys the comm, "Red Squadron, salvo launch on my mark, three…two…one…MARK! Fox one, missile away!"

In near perfect unison, sixteen missiles leap out from sixteen X-wings, swiftly followed by a wave of thirty-two golden mini-drones; their mission done, Red Squadron flip end-for-end until their nose pointed back at their previous course and accelerate away at maximum thrust, a large hyperspace window opening at their combined power, allowing them to jump to safety…

Moments before the window closes, Elisha transmits on the general taskforce channel, "_Achilles_, clear in hot, nail that big bastard!"

_Sixteen two-gigaton nuclear missiles streak towards their targets as brilliant purple lances of energy streak past them as the Drakh gunners attempt to shoot down the missile but this was largely an exercise in futility as the Shadows designed the short-ranged batteries to take out capital ships, not fast-moving ordnance though two missiles are taken by chance, this would not be enough…_

_ Fourteen new suns flare into brief brilliant existence in a detonation pattern around the control center, shattering her defensive weapons as well as damaging the thick armor but not enough to be worrisome; then the second wave strikes, the mini-drones burrow deep into the armor, easily penetrating thanks to their partially phasing, before detonating their 10 MT nuclear warheads..._

_ The heavy armor protecting the control center shatters as deep internal explosions and large cracks cripple the armor's coherence, rendering it vulnerable to a follow-up strike..._

"Captain, Red Squadron has cleared the target area!" The Achilles' communications officer calls out.

Alex reacts instantly to the report, "Weaps…fire…"

"Aye, sir! Firing Super MAC…now!" Came the officer's reply.

_Arcs of electricity spark across and away from the opening of the Super MAC's barrel as gigawatts of power flow from the battleship's duo of ZPMs; then, in one instant, high-intensity plasma flares out then folds back in as the 1250-ton ZPR exits the barrel at 30% lightspeed, leaving a long brilliant white line trailing behind it…_

_ Covering the space between the Achilles and its target in the space of seconds, the ZPR burrows deep into the control center, the armor protecting it, shattering like glass from the massive kinetic energy transfer from the ZPR…and detonates nanoseconds after in a brilliant flash of raw heat and light, the zero-point charge shatters as designed, unleashing exatons of raw destructive force that rips open a large hole in the Planet Killer's superstructure roughly fifteen kilometers in diameter, testament to the lethality of the ZPR…_

_ However, this did not prevent the fail-safe from activating…_

Alex was quick to notice the something was wrong…

"Oh, shit! Helm, bring us around and get us the hell out of here!"

The Prometheus' bridge erupts in cheers but veteran members of SG-1 remain stoically silent as their experience-honed instincts warn them that it still wasn't over. Jack calls out, "Settle down! This battle isn't over yet, never assume that the enemy doesn't have a Plan B. Sensors, give me a full scan of the Planet Killer."

Said officer needed only one look... "Sir...I think we should get the hell out of Dodge!"

Sam who was over said officer's shoulder, nods in confirmation and adds her two cents, "Jack, this thing seems to have a fail-safe of some kind, it's set to blow up everything caught inside the range of its arms!"

"The other ships have seen it too; Sheridan is ordering a rapid retreat." Comms also calls out.

"Who are we to argue with that; Helm, get us the hell out of here and don't spare the horses!"

Ivanova looked over at Morton, silently and suddenly thankful that Sheridan already had her falling to friendly lines. "Engine status?"

"Active, both Ion and Gravitic."

"Then get us the hell outta here!" she exclaimed. "Head for that gap!"

The _Titans_ came about quickly, it was badly shot up but thankfully none of her drive systems were damaged. The powerful collection of engines burns into life and began pushing the millions of tons of starship towards the perimeter of the cloud and safety. They had seen the destruction of the control room from a distance, and the _battleship_ that did it, even at this range, the _Titans_ had vibrated slightly as the concussive shockwave from whatever weapon that battleship used washed over her ship. Ivanova had never even heard of a _battleship_ that could go that fast; hell, it left the _Excalibur_ and _Victory_ eating its proverbial space dust for God's sake! It seemed to use a seamlessly fused series of completely unreadable technologies and its freakishly powerful _passive_ ECM prevented a detailed scan. Appearance-wise, she would have said it was some sort secondary ISA secret project as her lines were a fusion of human and some alien aesthetics, but it still raised more questions than answers. She looked at the sensor data one last time, and then put her mind to the job at hand.

The deck was trembling as all available power went to providing thrust, there was no way to turn or adjust the course now, it was a headlong charge for freedom and any Drakh ship that got in their way would have a short sharp meeting with one of Earth forces biggest ships. The _Victory_ and _Excalibur_ were rushing up behind them, the advanced ships having far more thrust and acceleration than a basic destroyer they rapidly caught up with the main body of the fleet. Starfuries and _Whitestars_ weaved between the bigger ships, the Minbari cruisers and lighter Vree ships were already clear and spreading out beyond the shrinking cloud, with the slower Earth cruisers behind.

"Can we get more from the engines?" she checked.

"We can try." Commander Morton replied. "We've got missiles everywhere!"

"That's why we need to be somewhere else." She emphasized. "Believe me; we _really_ don't want to be inside one of these things when it goes active. Been there, done that."

The _Titans_ caught up with the Omega wings, the last batch of destroyers racing for a rapidly closing gap in the clouds structure, the two advanced destroyers with them.

"Oh great." Ivanova cursed. "It would have to be closing wouldn't it? Couldn't just stop half way!"

As if the universe just decided to grant her wish, a brilliant white-blue sphere burst to life in the middle of the gap and expands to cover it, the Death's Cloud's structure seeming to slow down all around them and then stop…

Ivanova could only say, "What the hell?" Then a broadband transmission came through the _Titans_ comm system.

"This is General O'Neill to retreating friendly forces still inside the Planet Killer's perimeter; we've setup a temporary time-dilation field around the gap, GET YOUR ASSES OUT OF THERE!"

"You heard the man, POUR IT ON!" Ivanova roars out.

"We're almost there," Morton said. "A few more seconds, engines are at maximum overload."

She gripped her chair, the tension building to unbearable levels. If they timed it wrong it wouldn't matter about the missiles, ploughing into a piece of planet killer would be enough to end the _Titans_' short career, in fact, she could see that the gap was still closing but at a literal snail's pace. She watched on the visual displays as a score of destroyers made it through, the last of the _Whitestars_ dodged past the struts and then she caught another glimpse of the unknown battleship merrily blazing past the comparatively larger Earth Force ship and clearing the planet killer's perimeter, followed by her two large escorts...as nothing more than silver and black blurs…while the Excaliber and Victory followed up behind them as several other EarthForce formations rush to reach the closing gap in time. Titans only had a dozen or more kilometers to go…

"Crossing the gap…NOW!" Morton called, adrenalin hiking up the pitch in his voice.

Ivanova slightly jerks back in her seat as the Titans crosses the blue-white sphere of the time-dilation field, her small hairs standing on end; she blinks and the next thing she knows…they already have crossed the field.

Blinking rapidly in surprise, she turns her chair around to look back at the retreating gap…

The gap was easily two ship-lengths wide, the Victory made it through followed by several _Omega_'s, then another three flights of fighters, followed by the Excalibur and several more EarthForce warships; all of them seeming to be stretched like taffy as they cross through the time-dilation field, _if that blue-white sphere really is one_, she thought to herself skeptically.

"We're clear, we actually made it!" Morton cheered as the time-dilation field collapses and the gap closes, completing the massive sphere that is the Death Cloud.

"Course we did, never doubted it." Ivanova stood and straightened her jacket. "Status on the Death Cloud?"

"Its missiles are detonating internally." Lieutenant Rossdale smiled widely. "It's destroying itself from the inside along with a few hundred Drakh ships as a bonus."

"Unlucky for them." Morton said without a hint of sympathy, then his station begins to beep insistently. "Wait, message from fleet command, there are still Drakh ships close to Earth."

"Party's not over yet." Ivanova growls irritably as she returned quickly to her seat. "Range to target?"

"Nearest ship is well out of range, plotting intercept course." Morton said.

"Main pulse and laser batteries still operational." Rossdale said. "Missiles are expended and particle cannons offline, we have about a third of our stock of rail gun rounds left."

"That's going have to be good enough; take us in." Ivanova orders with a slight tone of resignation.

"Look on the bright side, ma'am, at least we still have those new ships to back up…" Morton adds as an afterthought.

"Normally, I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth but what I went through in B5…I tend to very leery of gift horses…" Ivanova replies quietly.

The ravaged warship adjusted course along with a significant number of other ships, but the quick rush to escape had left them out of position and with no formation and it took valuable seconds to get the homogenous mass on the move again. But once they were moving the Earth ships hit with a vengeance, slamming into Drakh vessels which had formed a screen for some of their other ships, Ivanova couldn't guess why but it didn't matter, the Drakh were between the fleet and the defense grid, it wasn't going to take long to finish them but she had this heavy weight at the bottom of her stomach that whatever the Drakh were up to…did not bode well for the people of Earth.

"Outstanding, kids…abso-damn-lutely outstanding!" Jack grinning broadly, the praise being well-deserved by his relatively inexperienced reserve crew since most of the Prometheus' primary crew having been rotated out to deal with refresher training, mostly multi-environmental survival and E&E (Escape & Evasion) with only the helmsman, CMO and Chief Engineer being the only members of the primary veteran crew. For their first 'real' combat mission, the 'kids' have passed with flying colors, with no casualties and one hell of a victory under their belts; the 'kids' performed magnificently and he was 'mildly' impressed.

He watches indulgently as the 'kids' exchange hugs, handshakes and high-fives before coughing loudly to get their attention.

"Alright kids, settle down…and have a look-see on the sensor holo." Jack points at the holographic projection in the middle of the bridge. "We still have a lot of hostiles in our airspace, which means our job isn't over yet. Recall Red Squadron and reload our vertical launcher with conventional anti-ship missiles, much as I like big explosions as the next guy, our enhanced nuke will disable the planet's satellite defenses along with any other ship caught in the blast so it looks like we're stuck with conventional missiles and our guns. Comms, relay similar orders to the rest of the fleet and tell Archangel to hold off on the Super MAC if her line of fire intersects with planet…"

"That will limit her firing arc, O'Neill." Teal'c points out.

"I know," O'Neill 'solemnly' replies, "but it can't be helped; Earth's safety is our primary objective."

Teal'c merely grunts in acknowledgement.

"General," Sensors calls out, "Multiple Drakh capital ships converging on Earth space, orbital regions are jammed with both friendlies and hostiles, orbital defense platforms are taking them down but their formation suggests that they're protecting something important…"

"Then we better get there pronto; Ryan, kick the tires and light a fire under us." Jack orders.

Lt. Ryan grins broadly as he brings the Prometheus around to face the brilliant blue pearl of home, "Yes, sir!" Gripping the throttle, he shoves it all the way forward, the Prometheus' powerful main drives responding smoothly to the demands.

The sensor officer calls out again, "Sir! Something weird's going…shit! Hostile ships deploying unknown substance into the atmosphere!"

Jack snarled, "The capital ships were a screening force to the real attack group! Sensors, what's the skinny on that black crud?"

"Analyzing now…" She calls out but everyone knew that whatever that stuff was did not bode well for those in the surface.

"Lieutenant, get us over there now!"

The Prometheus and her supporting task force charged straight to Earth orbit, Archangel, Hyperion and Persephone neatly sliding into assault position and smashed right into the midst of a Drakh battlegroup, all weapons blazing. A hyperspace window opens behind the formation signaling the return of the Red Squadron, closely followed by the other Tau'ri squadrons, having made micro-jumps of their own; their own guns blazing hot and anti-ship missiles arcing towards their targets. Not even bothering to decelerate, the Tau'ri task force punches through the defensive screen of capital ships and proceed to slaughter the large, unarmed Drakh 'tanker' vessels emptying a black substance into the atmosphere and before they could fully deploy their undoubtedly lethal payload. Earth's defense grid was swatting ships out of the sky at an alarming rate; the missile swarms and terrifically powerful particle cannons were doing their job, but simply did not have the rate of fire necessary to complete the job. Even with the Tau'ri task force now added into the mix, the damage had already been done.

Whitestars and fighters arrived to add their fire power, and then the first heavy units joined in, bearing scars of the attack on the Death cloud; their added presence to the orbital battlezone caused the few remaining Drakh vessels to open jump points and flee. The battle was over.

"Enemy forces have retreated."

President Sheridan barely heard those words; he sat with a look of abject horror as an ugly black morass settled over his blue and white home. He hadn't expected this, he had thought the Planet killer was the Drakh's only weapon and he had been wrong. They had thought victory was theirs, it had cost them and it had almost slipped through their fingers, but he thought they had won.

Groups of less heavily damaged ships were opening jump points and giving chase to the Drakh ships, eager to take some revenge for the cowardly attack, but Sheridan did not accompany them, both Victory and Excalibur had taken damage and needed repairs, especially Victory, but at least they had survived. He was faced now with two questions, firstly and most importantly was finding out exactly what had happened to Earth, how to fix it, and how to make sure the Drakh paid for it in blood. The second was the identity of the newly arrived task force, it's ships had destroyed the Planet killer control room and practically butchered a large number of Drakh ships thereby proving it was a friend and possessed a largely human crew.

"I need a channel to Earth central," Sheridan said quietly. "Try to find out what happened. Then I want to speak to the _Prometheus_, find out exactly who they are and where they stand."

To Be Continued…


	3. Chapter 3

I do not own Stargate, Stargate: Atlantis, Halo, Babylon 5, etc., etc.

I Hate Quantum Mechanics!

Chapter 3: Meeting Between Universes

_Previously…_

_ "I need a channel to Earth Central," Sheridan said quietly. "Try to find out what happened. Then I want to speak to the __Prometheus__, find out exactly who they are and where they stand."_

_TFS Prometheus_

"General, I'm bringing up the combined findings on the main holo projector." 1st Lt. 'Jeff' Murphy, Prometheus' current sensor officer calls out into the dimly lit bridge as the Tau'ri task force is technically still at 'battle stations' status so the normally soft white overhead lighting has been replaced with red combat lighting as to minimize the glare coming of the various solid state and holographic screens and displays, though for most of the bridge crew, the best...and the most disturbing sight...came from Earth as they orbited the planet, a dark ominous view still covering the planet, the results of the deployed Drakh weapon.

The bewildering array of data which also include enhanced and enlarge view of…whatever that black…gunk…was made of…

"Honey…" Jack calls out plaintively.

With a long-suffering sigh, Sam sums it up, "It's a nanite plague, Jack."

Jack features harden. "What kind of damage are we looking at?"

Sam gives the readings fast yet thorough look before she dumbs it down to something her husband could not complain about, "We're looking at a very, very advanced piece of technology, Jack, if I'm reading the data correctly, this stuff is fatal once you caught it…"

"Oh, this is bullshit! We kicked ass and took names, hell, we practically blew a monster hole out of a planet killer, and then the bastards pull this sort of shit!" Jack all but snarled out.

"Well, there's some good news, sort of…"

"Let me have it, honey."

"It seems that the plague has to adapt to human biology, it's designed to be a perfect killing machine but it looks like that it wasn't correctly setup. I had our embedded scientists' take a look and we've come to the conclusion that this is not their technology so the plague isn't 'set' correctly so it's not yet lethal if at all but it will be in five years which gives humanity and its allies that much of a window of opportunity to find a cure…"

"Then we help them any way we can." Jack replies without hesitation. "Comms, contact the frigates _Carronade_ and _Warblade_, order them to break fleet formation and head back to the quantum gate via hyperspace, turn it on by anyway they can think of and send an encrypted message via subspace radio or message drones to CentCom and the SGC, requesting a _Merlin_, preferably the _Florence_ _Nightingale_, a fleet or two plus a scout force to assist the locals…also have McKay and our eggheads start digging through the Atlantis database to see if the Ancients had encountered this crud or…oh, I don't know…had 'gated' to this universe and stole a basic format of this shit or something…"

"Aye, sir." Chief Warrant Officer Anatolia Zaytsev replies from her position as communications officer and goes to work, grinning as she does so, sending a verbatim recording of Jack's words rather than dictating it into text format.

Mitchell decided to add his own two cents, "Wonder if President Sheridan is going to give us a call as to where we stand?"

"General," Zaytsev calls out, "President Sheridan is asking to talk to you."

Jack merely gave Mitchell a flat look that said, 'Thanks for jinxing it."

Mitchell replies with a sheepish, "Oops."

"Put it through the main projector, Comms."

President Sheridan's face flares to holographic life in front of Jack and SG-1.

"Mr. President." Jack greets with a casual salute.

"General O'Neill," Sheridan begins.

"Call me Jack, sir. I can tell you're ex-military so we can save the fancy words for the politicians." Jack interrupts in his typical manner.

Sheridan grins broadly, "In that case, Jack, I'm call to see where you stand in all this…helping the Alliance against the Drakh."

"Not used to having help given for free, huh?"

"No strings attached?"

"Tell you what…I'll come over to your badass warship and give you the low-down of who we are and where we come from along with a database of our history and a primer to our technology, does that sound good enough?"

"Pretty good actually...and here I was, planning to invite your command group over for an old-school powwow."

Jack had to laugh at this, "Great minds think alike, Mr. President."

Sheridan only laughs back, "Indeed they do...and please call me John."

"Should I bring a case of beer, snacks and war stories?"

"Sure, why not? We can keep things informal, just the way we like it!"

"I'll even toss in a couple of Jack Daniels from my personal stash!"

It was at this point that Garibaldi decided to interrupt, much as he was enjoying the exchange, they best get back to the business at hand, "Much as I enjoy the banter of two laid-back commanders, we still have a lot of work to do…"

Jack sighs, "No rest for the wicked, I'll have a shuttle ready and loaded in a few minutes, John, think you can meet me at your hanger bay?"

John nods somberly, "I'll meet you there…and think you can pack along a couple of bottles of extra strength aspirin while you're at it?"

"I'll make it industrial-strength just to be on the safe side."

"Thanks."

John nods to someone off screen and the transmission cuts off.

Jack looks at his Operations officer, "Ops, have one of our Puddlejumpers prepped for launch…and load a case of beer and SG-1's snacks plus two bottles of industrial-strength aspirins for the President; I'll pack the JDs."

Said officer answers with a grin, "Yes, sir."

Jack rises from his command chair, turning to look at his team, "Well, group, time for an ole' meet-and-greet."

Daniel merely sighs, "I just hope you don't shoot your mouth off like the last time we had a 'meet-and-greet' with the leadership of another race."

"Stop being such a worrywart, Danny boy, he's human, what could go wrong?"

"I shudder just thinking about what _could_ happen…"

"Oi!"

_Minutes later, the armored doors of the Prometheus' starboard hanger bay split apart and a Puddlejumper boosts through the force field keeping the atmosphere in the hanger; the sides of the Puddlejumper extend from the hull, revealing the armored drive pods. Said pods flare to life and the jumper accelerates towards its destination, the flagship _Excalibur_…_

_Excalibur_

The relatively tiny Puddlejumper deftly nosed through the magnetic field keeping the massive capital ship's atmosphere inside the equally massive hanger bay built into the right side of the hull. Jack and Mitchell whistle appreciatively the sheer size of the warship as they look at her through both their organic eyes and the Puddlejumper's sensors. The jumper settles on the deck with a gentle 180 spin, the drive pods retracting and the landing skids extending as the jumper completes its spin. SG-1 looks out the viewport of the jumper, looking out across the well-lit bay, now looking virtually empty with its alcoves empty of the ship's fighter wing which was currently missing, no doubt either on patrol or KIA.

"Let's go see what these people are like." Jack says cheerfully but not before pulling on a gun strap and sliding a zat into the holster. "But let's not too comfortable either." He mentally opens the rear access ramp just as the rest of SG-1 also holster and ready their sidearms. They are met outside of the jumper by two armed marines and an officer in a blue uniform, all clearly human.

"Major General O'Neill, commander of SG-1 and _Prometheus_ of…" He paused slightly, "…the Tau'ri Federation. This is my team SG-1, Brigadier General Carter, Colonel Mitchell, Infiltration Specialist Vala Mal Doran, Doctor Jackson and Jaffa Ambassador Teal'c, requesting permission to come aboard."

"Permission granted, sir." The officer said curtly. "If you'll follow me the President is waiting."

"If it isn't too much trouble, can we bring this case along? I brought some ice-breakers."

"Of course, sir."

They were escorted quickly to what looked like a tiny subway car which instantly got Jack all giddy much like a little kid but a swift covert stomp on the foot by Sam got him to settle down. They got in and began their journey through the ship. Sam and Teal'c quietly noted the validity of this internal rail system as getting around _Prometheus_ could be hard work sometimes and it was a fraction the size of this battleship, a miniaturized transit system would by the far the best way to get around but this problem is largely circumvented by the development of the internal transporter booth, copied directly from Atlantis' own. It came to a stop and the group moved towards a more conventional looking elevator. After a second short journey and a quick walk down a corridor, they arrived at a large room adjacent to the ship's bridge; Jack took a quick glance around as they passed and noting it wasn't all that different to his own ship.

"In here please." The officer gestured, and the six guests stepped into the meeting room occupied by a tall man with grey hair and a neat beard.

"Thank you, Commander, you can leave us." He said with a clear American accent which Jack made grin broadly as it was the same voice as he heard over the communication channels and was apparently President Sheridan. The escorts left, leaving Sheridan and SG-1 alone.

"Pull up a chair." Sheridan pointed to the self-illuminating table in the centre of the room before doing so himself. "I can see this is going to be quite a talk, and I for one would rather be sat down."

SG-1 follows suit while depositing their case on the table; this was certainly a very good sign, at least in Daniel's opinion.

"First of all, how are your ships and crew?" Sheridan asked. "Did you take any casualties? Can we help in any way?"

"They only scorched our armor, Mr. President." Jack replies with a casual air as he opens the case and start pulling out and opening containers of liquid and boxes of food. "Nothing we can't handle."

"I'll guess we'll start then, do you recognize me?"

"Your accent and tone is the same as I heard over the speaker so I'm guessing you're President John Sheridan but before half an hour ago we'd never heard of you. We have a pretty good idea how we came to be here but it looks like our timing was pretty good anyway." Jack said with a broad grin as he passes Teal'c a whole box of Krispy Creme donuts and a thermos of warm milk chocolate. "My name is Jack O'Neill; formerly a Major General in the United States Air Force and commander of Stargate Command…"

"United States?" Sheridan gasps, interrupting. "There hasn't been a United States since the formation of the Alliance over a century ago."

"What Alliance?" Daniel asks as he catches the thermos being slid to him with a glance. "Sorry, sir; my name is Daniel Jackson, SG-1's linguistics, archeological and First Contacts expert, permanently assigned to Stargate Command."

"The Earth Alliance of course," Sheridan frowns, though inwardly he was impressed by Daniel's verbal 'resume'. "It took over from the individual nation states when we started heading into space."

"Hmm…that's pretty weird 'cause I remember that humanity formally unified, after a year of cleaning up the usual mess that is the Middle East and all those jihadist yahoos, in 2015, two years after the Disclosure of the Stargate Program…" Jack mused to himself out loud as he pulls out two precut slices of Black Forest cake for him and Sam along with a can of beer and a bottle of water.

"Wait, humanity unified in 2015? Stargate Program?" John asks in a puzzled tone as he catches a plastic wrapped plate of chocolate chip cookies and another can of beer.

Daniel merely sighs in long suffering exasperation as he proceeds to explain, "Actually, Mr. President, what Jack really meant to say was that we believe that our task force has been transported into the future by roughly two hundred and forty-eight years and…" Taking a sip out of his thermos, the distinctive scent of green tea filling the room.

"You're from the past?" Sheridan interrupts in shock, chocking slightly on the cookie he had just take a bite out of. "I don't understand, your ship seems far too advanced than anything from back then, hell it's pretty damn impressive right now."

"Well, Mr. President, if you had let me finish, I would have also said that we were also from an alternate universe." Daniel replies tersely as he disliked being interrupted.

_That_ took Sheridan aback, "What?"

Jack cuts in, "Let me explain, Danny boy…John, we, my task force and I, were enroute back to our Earth after finishing the space trails of the Archangel outside the Sol System when we were forced out of hyperspace by whatever support systems that damn gate had on it and got sucked into the event horizon and we exited into your universe; after we got our bearings, we picked up your battlefield transmissions and I ordered the task force in to reinforce your faltering battle line…and when you interrupted me, I was going to say that I'm the Commanding Officer of the _entire_ Tau'ri military."

"What device? You are?" Sheridan asked.

Sam took that as her cue to jump in, "Sir, the device we just mention is what believe is transdimensional Stargate, albeit a very large one, designed to cross the quantum barrier between realities and other universes, though it's still anyone's guess if this device is locked in on one universe or can be dialed to connect to other universes like its much smaller cousins. We suspect and entirely possible that the device remained dormant through the millennia until its orbit and our return vector coincided which may have activated a series of command protocols that caused us to end up where we are now. And before you ask, Mister President, a Stargate is a ring-shaped device that is capable of generating a stabilized wormhole between two of them, a point of origin and a destination; it provides instantaneous travel between worlds, spanning hundreds if not thousands of lightyears in a blink of an eye, allowing anyone to simply _walk_ from planet to planet."

Jack adds in, "And this isn't our first time in an alternate dimension or in the future or in the past, Stargate Command was and still is considered as the craziest command on Earth where the weird, bizarre and utterly insane is considered as a 'normal' day in the office."

"You guys are from an alternate universe? Really?" Sheridan asked skeptically. "Seriously? Your command has that kind of reputation?"

"We can't say for certain without examining some historical records." Daniel adding a note of caution to the developing conversation. "But judging from the extensive and distinct disparity of our technologies and your lack of knowledge of the Stargate seems to confirm it quite well."

"Well, that makes a few more pieces of the puzzle fit together." Sheridan said, taking a gulp from his beer. "So how did you get a ship like that in your time?"

"Currently the _Prometheus_ has been refitted with a lot of tech that we developed ourselves but most of it is based on alien technology we've reverse engineered with a lot of outside help, though the core of it is 100% human tech; she's, in fact, the 'mother' of most of our ships as she was the testbed ship for most of our reverse-engineered and home-made tech." Jack shrugs. "We had been fighting to keep our world safe for nearly twelve years roughly 10-20 years ago against a variety of threats, mainly from a race called the Goa'uld, followed by the Replicators, the Wraith and finally the Ori, though the Lucian Alliance and the jackasses of the Free Jaffa Nation barely rate as irritations…"

"We've never heard of them." Sheridan answers, shaking his head. "It seems there are a lot of differences between our universes."

"Probably a lot more, considering all the random interactions that takes place to shape nature and society." Daniel states quietly.

"Right now, people, we got a much bigger problem at hand." Jack nudges Sam with his elbow, who pulls out a general-purpose data tablet from her pants pocket and slides it over to Sheridan. "This is the data from the scans we made on the Plague those aliens left in Earth's atmosphere."

Sheridan catches data tablet and looks through the data with a grimace, grabbing his beer can and guzzling down the rest in one long pull. "A lot of this is confirmed by our scans, but how do you know its nanotech?"

"Our sensors are hybrid Asgard-Ancient types, powerful stuff." Jack explains without elaborating too much. "They can find a really tiny needle in the middle of a monster haystack."

"Mind if I keep these reports?" Sheridan asked, deciding to warily trust them for the time being until they do prove to be trustworthy. _(AN: In other words, Sheridan is willing to trust the Tau'ri but will be keeping one hand on his PPG until they do prove to be worthy of his trust…)_

"Sure, and we can provide more as our scanners take samples to analyze." Jack states casually. "And if we get some of this black crud back to our facilities back home we might be able to provide more active help."

"Do you have a way to return home?"

"Yep, by way of the same gate that dumped us into this universe in the first place…" Jack began.

"Whoa, whoa, wait a minute, you're saying there's one of those things right here and we never noticed?" Sheridan interrupted, looking up from his freshly opened second can of beer.

"The damn thing's as stealthy as a ghost," Jack admitted. "We'd have flown right by the damn thing if our flight path didn't intersect with it."

"Well, I guess you're free to come and go as you please." Sheridan shrugs as he takes a pull of his second can of beer. "I don't think we have anything powerful enough or fast enough to fight or chase you anyway!"

"Maybe not Mr. President but as supreme commander of the Tau'ri Federation military, I'm authorized to render assistance in any and every state or form." Jack says formally.

"You already earned our thanks and trust, General." Sheridan replied. "Your actions today have proven that, I am not too proud to admit you can help us here, my only concern right now is saving Earth."

"I agree with you there, Mr. President. Even though we are from different places, we are also from the same home, if you know what I mean."

"In a way." Sheridan agreed as he finishes his beer.

"I got plenty of pull back in my home universe, hell, I practically have free reign and a free hand to establish treaties and agreements between any and every alien races me or my troops encounter out in space."

_That_ declaration made Sheridan arch an eyebrow in surprise. "You must have one hell of a service rep to be able to get that kind of discretion."

Jack grins and pulls out a data tablet of his own, one with a personalized _Simpsons_ shock cover, and points it at Sheridan's tablet, "I'm sending you my service file and historical data of what we did, and still do, in Stargate Command plus our own historical data along with a primer of our technology and our old enemies and their technology along with a primer to our allies and a basic starmap of our territory."

John looks down at his data tablet as it beeps, indicating that it just received a…what the hell?!

John looks up in disbelief, "You just sent me a 510 gigabyte file and it downloaded in less than 10 seconds?"

Jack grins broadly, "Our data tablets are effectively miniaturized super computers with integrated micro-subspace transmitters with a range of 150 klicks in any direction in broadband transmission or 200 klicks with direct line of sight. Oh, by the way, I took the liberty to send a couple of my frigates back to the Quantum Gate to call for back-up...I told 'em to tell Stargate Command that we need science vessels, and a Merlin-class city-ship or two plus a couple of Everest-class defense stations to guard the gate itself plus a scout force and attack fleet to assist with your search for a cure."

Sheridan smiles broadly, "Thank you." Then his mind registers the word 'city-ship', "What's a city-ship?"

Sam answers, "It's one of the ancient Alterans' highest technological achievements, Mr. President; they've essentially created a city capable of interstellar flight as well as landing and taking off from a planet."

_That_ declaration utterly shocks Sheridan as he tries to imagine a city with such advanced capabilities, then his overloaded brain picks up a certain detail..._Merlin-class..._

"What kind of…_city-ship_…is the Merlin-class?" Sheridan asks tentatively.

Sam replies eagerly, "A sub-class of the _Atlantis_-class city-ship with specialized equipment for specific types of operations; for this situation, we're calling in the _Florence Nightingale_…"

John instantly catches on, "A medical city-ship!"

Sam nods in confirmation, "Equipped with the latest in medical technologies and the most advanced techniques combined and gathered across four galaxies."

_That _caught John off guard as he receives another shock, _"Four Galaxies?"_ He croaks out in shock.

"Oops."

Jack merely sighs, even vets like him had the occasional 'slip-of-the-tongue' once in a while and his wife Sam was no exception, though he still tries to be as cryptic as possible, "Our FTL gives us serious reach and range for both our explorers and military units."

John simply couldn't stop himself from asking, his brain still in shock, "Just how far have you people explored?"

Sam couldn't stop herself either, "Roughly, somewhere close to half-a-trillion lightyears if not more, covering the Milky Way, Pegasus Irregular, Ida and a tenth of the Andromeda Galaxy, not counting the spaces between them."

Garabaldi, ensconced in the Excalibur's security station, monitoring the conference, and John couldn't help but think of _this_ revelation as, _"HOLY SHIT!"_

John realizes instantly that an opportunity of galactic proportions just fell on his lap. "Have you encountered any First Ones?"

"First Ones?" Daniel asks.

Sheridan mentally kicks himself in the head, reprimanding himself for forgetting that _these _people were not from _his_ universe. "First Ones are advanced civilizations that have been around for millions of years longer than we have...by our standards, they're so advanced that we might as well be amoeba to them."

"Oh." "Fascinating." Came the simultaneous, relatively, reply to that explanation.

"You have, haven't you?"

Teal'c finally makes his own input, in his usual blunt way. "We call what you call First Ones as Ancients…The Tau'ri are descended from an Ancient race, the Alterans; to be more precise, they are the second evolution of the Ancient Alterans. They are also the protégés of the Asgard, old allies of the Alterans."

For the third or fourth time, both John and Garabaldi's brains shut down in shock at the revelation that their cousins were essentially much higher up the technological and scientific 'ladder' than even they could hope for in a thousand years! The second evolution of a First One race and mentored by another?!

For the first time in a very long time, John really didn't know what to say...

Jack was quick to pick up on John's shell-shocked mental processes but couldn't think of anything until his data tablet unexpectedly 'pinged'.

He pulls out his tablet and taps on the flashing message icon, and grins broadly, "Mr. President, good news, the Federation Senate has given immediate approval to send both medical and military personnel to render assistance to the Interstellar Alliance and the Earth Alliance; the _Nightingale_ and her sister, the _Louis Pasteur_, along with four science vessels, are enroute to the Quantum Gate along with the Federation 3rd and 7th Fleets, whose mission is to assist the Interstellar Alliance as a long-range, fast-attack force, and supported by the 42nd Pathfinder Task Force, whose mission is to act as the Alliance and Federation's long-range scouts…and before you ask, both fleets have 800 ships apiece while the task force has roughly 120 ships, most of them being light ships with a 30-ship core of heavy capital ships.

"Thank you General." Sheridan managed a smile, a real worry-free smile for the first time in a long time. "Damn this has been a long, weird but very good day."

Jack smirks, "This is just another day in the office for us, sir but yeah, this has been a very good day."

SG-1 leaves together but leaves the two bottles behind as a gift as they are guided back to the hanger bay; John opens a bottle, pours a generous splash of whiskey into his glass and downs it in one swallow, sighing in pleasure as the finely aged alcohol slowly worked its way down like good alcohol should. The door chime beeps softly as he expected.

"Come in." he calls out, and the door swished open to reveal his old friend and security chief Michael Garibaldi. "You hear all that?"

"Yeah." The heavyset bald man nods as he pours himself a shot. "Pretty tall tale too."

"You believe them?"

"Not as far as I can throw them." Garibaldi replies bluntly before downing the shot in one go, sighing appreciatively at the smoothness. "If they'd have said they were from the future, maybe, but their story is just too unbelievable."

"They did happen to destroy that planet killer though, at least it shows they aren't working for the Drakh, or anyone who wants Earth destroyed…I mean do you know anyone that have nukes of that kind of explosive tonnage on call?" John points out.

"Doesn't mean they're friendly." Garibaldi cautions. "Clark's hanger-on's and the Psicorps didn't want Earth destroyed, doesn't mean we're all on the same side…although you do have a point about their nukes."

Sheridan feels the muscles in his jaw pulling taut, a subtle sign of discomfort for those that know him best. "They came and saved Earth, we have to be extremely careful how we handle this. Lies or not, the media is going to turn them into heroes."

"Perfect way to get into our inner circle and take us down from within." Garibaldi nodding.

"Do you actually have normal thoughts like everyone else, or is everything a conspiracy with you?" Sheridan poking a little bit of fun at his old Chief of Security. "Plus if you haven't noticed, they were equipped with _energy shields_ and long-ranged energy weapons of a type we've never encountered before; they don't need to infiltrate our inner circle to take us down...they can probably take us down head-on with little to no problem!"

"Get shot in the back once or twice and you'll be the same." He smiles back a little. "I'm telling you John, something just doesn't add up."

There was a chime, and on a display screen a message popped up for the President.

"I had the ship's scanners give them the once over," He referred to the visitors. "They're all human except for Ambassador Teal'c and Miss Doran, scanners indicate that the Ambassador came from a human baseline which pretty obvious, hell, he looked like he could give a Drazi or a Mimbari warrior a serious run in the muscle department…as for miss Doran, she's also from a human baseline but it looks like that her body's been tampered or modified in an unrecognizable manner but damn if she doesn't look good; and look at this, the types of toxins in their blood and lungs match what you'd expect to see on a planet which used fossil fuels, like twentieth century Earth."

"Or Early 21st Century," Garibaldi adds. "…could be faked."

"Maybe, but this ship uses the best scanners we have, if they can fool them it'll be quite a feat." Sheridan turns off the screen. "You also have to ask why they'd go to the trouble, although the concentrations aren't up to the levels I would have expected."

"Chaos, power, money. The usual reasons…but it could be that they only recently found their 'inheritance' and are still integrating and/or replacing their old tech with the new stuff." Garibaldi admits.

"We need to check out their story, if it's true we can trust them, at least a little." Sheridan proposes.

"How do we check it out, I mean they…the device." He realized.

"The device." Sheridan grins. "If we go out there and find something in the Asteroid field we'll know they're telling the truth, or at least part of the truth."

"Plus if we find it we can put a guard on it, just to be safe."

"Agreed, but we need their help to find this artifact or device or whatever." Sheridan states, remembering none too fondly the last dimensional portal he had discovered leading to Thirdspace. "So play along, we'll let them think we're taking their word for it until we get our own proof. Ideally we should get a telepath in to see if they're hiding anything."

"Telepaths can be fooled." Garibaldi mentions. "But if we get hard evidence, I'll be happier."

"Yeah, me too." Sheridan sighs, it had been a very long few days but the signs are there that things are starting to ease off. "Remember when we just used to sit on a station and we only had to worry about getting stomped on by Shadows, Vorlons, or our own government?"

"Happy days." Garibaldi grins broadly. "We're just getting old, I, for one am looking forward to solving this mystery though I do kinda wish that we had some of their nukes on call back then…probably would have made things a little bit easier."

"Well, if they can help us defeat the plague, I'd cut a deal with anyone for a cure to that thing." Sheridan admits. "We need to act on this right damn quick."

"I'll have the Rangers start looking through the Asteroid belt. If they know what to look for…"

"It'll still take too long, besides you heard O'Neill…the damn thing's natural passive stealth is so effective that even _their_ sensors didn't detect it until it was too late; no, we'll have to try the direct route and take care of it ourselves." Sheridan concludes. "Okay Michael, stay on board for now, we're not done for the day yet."

"For the record, O'Neill looks like a CO I'd happily work with, my first look at the guy told me that this is a boss that looks after the troops…"

"Yeah, he gives off the impression of a laid-back kind of commander but I get the feeling he's more than capable of blowing us to kingdom come if we cross him…"

"A man after my own heart!"

"Except he's the one with the bigger guns…"

"Touché, Boss."

Prometheus Puddlejumper _Torch_

"I don't think they bought it completely." Sam says out loud as they exit the Excalibur's hanger deck.

"I wouldn't have either." Daniel agrees quietly, "But it's the way it happened, we'll just have to convince them plus they just don't have the experience we do in situations like this."

"Our primary mission just changed. We'll be remaining on station to provide the Interstellar Alliance and Earth Alliance with both medical and military assistance." Jack states in his 'I'm-going-to-blow-shit-up' tone of voice. "_Nightingale_, _Pasteur_ and the science vessels should be transiting shortly along with the guard stations to protect the Quantum Gate; 42nd Pathfinders will be transiting right behind them with orders to immediate disperse and locate possible Drakh bases, judging from the President's data, that shouldn't be too hard, and staging areas while 3rd and 7th Fleets will be standing by to jump at the earliest warning from the Pathfinders, though they will be stopping over to pick up reps from the ISA and EA groups."

Teal'c adds his thought to the growing discussion, "Their technology is not as advanced as we are used to dealing with; from the weapons we have seen and scanned, they are not as powerful compared to Asgard or Alteran weapon technology…and what weapons that have some similarities to our own are too large and cumbersome to be sufficiently effective in combat against ships of our universe although I am interested in comparing how relatively powerful their individual ship class is capable of compared to our own."

Jack turns his chair around leaving the flying to Mitchell, "Command and the Senate also told me to return to favor to the Drakh for their little bioweapon...we have full operational control of three NOVA bombs and ten Horizon-IIs..."

Mitchell turns to look at Jack in surprise, "That's a _lot_ of bang to go around, boss."

"You know our policy regarding this, Colonel."

Mitchell nods, "I know, I know. It's just...we rarely get to play with so much explosive argument!"

"Oh, you never know..." Jack smirks knowingly as _Torch_ touches down on the _Prometheus'_ hanger deck.

A few minutes later SG-1 resume their original positions on the bridge, Jack on the command seat, Teal'c at Weaps, Sam at the secondary sensor station, Mitchell at flight ops, Daniel and Vala...somewhere else while Earth still dominates the ship's forward view.

"I think you made a new friend sir," Lt. Zaytsev grins. "President Sheridan just sent a message, he'd like to investigate the ancient device and make sure it isn't a threat."

It made sense, it was sheer dumb luck that the _Prometheus_ and her task force had found this device, if it had been someone else like that snake-weed Anubis when he moved into the Solar system several years ago, the story here would have been a lot different. After seeing some of the tech and races in this universe, Jack knew he would be recommending some serious fortification on his home side just like Sheridan seemed to be planning doing too…especially if it seem that some of the more advanced races here in this universe were in the mood to play and act God.

_To hell with that!_

"Acknowledge that transmission and give him the coordinates but also tell him that we will be also heading back to the Quantum Gate to meet up with the commanders of the reinforcement fleets and scout task force along the chief medical commanders of the _Nightingale_ and _Pasteur_."

"President Sheridan acknowledges your message, sir."

"Order the task force to make a micro-jump back to the Quantum Gate but tell them to make it as discrete as possible."

"Aye, sir."

Jack looks at his helm officer, "Helm, get us out of here."

"Roger that, boss."

As the _Prometheus_ turns on her axis to align with the general direction of the Quantum Gate; Jack, however, had a couple of issues weighing heavily on his mind. First off, he technically violated First Contact protocols but given that the local forces were dealing with a planet killer, he was well within his purview as task force commander to intervene and support the locals by whatever means necessary...though even he felt that using Sam's prototype unstable-zero-point Super MAC slug was a bit on the excessive side...it literally blew a 15 km wide hole out the back of the damn thing, for pete's sake!

He wanted to help, and was convinced it would be the right thing to do, but it would come down to President Hayes in the end and the Federation Council. He needed to get some information about the history of this planet to present to his government so they could get a real feel for whether President Sheridan was a democratic leader or a despot in disguise. Earth didn't deserve to die, even if it was populated by Neo-nazis, but allying with them was another question, as was allowing them into the SGC.

"We have confirmation from the _Excalibur_, sir." Foster brought him out of his thoughts. "They'll make a quick jump and see us there."

"Very well, engage engines and head for the device, we could use some more information on it ourselves."

"Like whether or not it'll take us home, sir?"

Jack merely smirks, "Oh, it'll take us home, I have no doubt about that, it's the consequences to activating the damn thing that'll keep me up at night." Not that it really did, thanks to the good ole' days…

Minbar

Homeworld of the Minbari Federation.

The dark robed human strode through the brilliant crystalline city exuding confidence; he had no fear of this place or the inhabitants. He ignores the dark looks of warriors as he passes them by on the street and walks quickly through the elegantly pointed doorway of the Interstellar Alliance government building. Just a few short years ago a human walking the glimmering crystal streets of Tuzenore would have been ridiculous, he'd have been lynched by warriors while the rest of the population looked on in surprise, but the last few years had changed everything on Minbar, and it had been the humans that had been the catalyst that, in the view of most Minbari, saved their civilization.

This human called Minbar his home, or at least as much of a home as he could have. He wasn't a diplomat or soldier, he is a Ranger, one of the _Anla'shok_, which roughly translated as 'Application of Force' established by Valen to lead the war against the Shadows. They were despised by some, revered by others but respected by all and their record of service was bordering on legendary. They are an elite force and it was a fool who tried to stand in their way, especially this particular human. He stopped only when he reached his destination, a large door which he carefully knocks on.

"Come in." A gentle voice replies from beyond the portal, and the Ranger carefully enters using a quiet grace seemingly at odds with his determined march of a few seconds ago.

"_Entil'zha_." He speaks softly. "We have news from Earth, President Sheridan is alive and well, and the Shadow weapon is destroyed."

For a moment the leader of his order seemed to physically shrink, her already slender frame bowing in relief as it let go of the stresses harbored within. He and his order are sworn to fight for this woman, he would lay down his life without question if she willed it; for she was _Entil'zha_, she was Delenn of the family Mir, and she was the greatest leader of her race since Valen. She quickly regains her composure, a calm certainty returning to her movements and expression.

"Thank you." She bows gently, her hands steepled in the Religious caste greeting.

"There is more, Entil'zha." He says haltingly. He had fought many enemies, had stared death in the face and defied the gods of old, but stood before this epitome of calm resolve he falters to complete his report. "The Drakh, before retreating…they left a poison in Earth's atmosphere…a Shadow plague."

Delenn did not speak immediately, but fixes the Ranger with a strong cold stare.

"We are still trying to find out what its effects will be, but it seems the entire planetary population will be affected."

"And the Drakh?" Delenn asks quietly, but that soft voice was hard and sharp as a sword.

"Many were killed, and many fled." He answers. "The Earth fleet and our own ships are tracking them back to their base."

"When you find their base…" Delenn continues quietly. "You will inform me, we will assemble a fleet and then we will kill them."

"Yes Entil'zha." He nods. Delenn's strength and ruthless streak were also well known to the Rangers, she was as quiet and gentle a woman as had ever walked the streets of Minbar, but she had a determination and a strength of will which had literally shaped the galaxy. "There is something else, the ships which gave us victory, it wasn't ours."

"Then whose are they?"

Delenn listens carefully to the answer with slightly wider eyes; it seems her husband had not lost his ability to attract strange fate but this case; it came in spades as the human saying goes.

"This is more than a curiosity." Shai Alyt Kathenn muses over the report from Earth. "It represents a display of how far beyond our control things have fallen."

Kathenn is an old warrior and a famed one, feared and respected in equal measure as master of the ferocious Wind Swords clan of the Warrior caste. The Wind swords were well known within Minbari society as the most warlike of all warriors and the most stubborn and reactionary. They yearned for war as if it were oxygen; it was vital to their existence and when battle could not be found they would invent it. Everyone knew they were the strongest supporters of the war with Earth, and countless lesser conflicts before, and their role in the Minbari's internal leadership crisis was the subject of much scrutiny. It was the Wind swords that broke Valen's first law; that Minbari do not kill other Minbari, and it was Kathenn who had given those orders.

"Our warriors in the battle report that the new vessels speak the human language despite their differing designs; however, our scans detected that the basic signatures of their weapons and power grids are exactly the same." His aide, a powerful female named Antai informs him. While the Wind swords would never send a ship to help Earth on principle, some of the vessels had their clan members onboard.

"Of course they did." Kathenn grunts. "Look at the designs, only humans could build something so basic and ugly."

"They outran the Ranger ships without difficulty…and the largest of them easily outran the new ships while it is also powerful enough to blast a massive hole out the back of the Shadow Planet Killer," Antai adds. "We know little else about their complete capabilities, but the speeds they achieved are cause enough for concern, the fact that they also field powerful energy shielding is also another cause for concern."

"The humans have played the Grey council, tricked us into revealing our secrets for this 'Victory' project to built new warships for the Alliance, ships that are Earth force in all but name…when all along they had the technology to build something like this." Kathenn grimaces sharply. "I always said these humans were a menace, and I am proved right."

"Perhaps now the other warriors will heed you." His aide adds hopefully.

"Perhaps, we have lived in smug complacency too long, we are so reliant on our technology we have forgotten what makes a true warrior." Kathenn stares at the image of the modest fleet. "One day soon, we must become warriors once again, and fight for the glory of our people."

Asteroid belt

Sol system.

The _Excalibur_ dropped out of hyperspace in a blossom of blue light, its hull was still marked and scarred from the recent battle but the ship was still considered fully combat capable. To Garibaldi's surprise, and mild annoyance, the _Prometheus_ and her fleet were already waiting for them.

"Sensors, begin a scan of the location we've been given." Sheridan orders tiredly, he was fighting fatigue and in no mood for a long search. Fortunately the coordinates were accurate, and a tiny return on the scans was recorded.

"Well, at least we didn't waste our trip." Garibaldi shrugs. "We just gotta see if it's real."

"Move us closer, and try to get a clear reading." Sheridan orders and the new warship glides gently closer but still maintaining a respectable safe distance.

"Whatever it's made of sir, it's absorbing most of our scans like a sponge does water." The sensor officer reports. "Only the Vorlon based systems are working, somewhat."

"Somewhat? Makes it a pretty sophisticated piece of equipment then?" Sheridan asks. "Is it Vorlon in origin?"

"Hard to say since some of the scanner pulses from the Vorlon sensors are being bent away but I don't think so, sir. I'm picking up some similar material and energy signatures from it that closely matches that of the _Archangel_ and _Prometheus_."

In one respect that was a relief, Vorlon dimensional gates usually don't herald fun and games but Sheridan hadn't heard of any other race building similar devices. Whatever this was it was something totally new and never before recorded.

"We have a visual sir." He reported, and the station display altered to reveal the device.

"Big." Garibaldi comments with a touch of awe. "Very big…shiny too. Almost looks brand new."

The screen showed the bright smooth oval shaped device, giving its size as miles in diameter, easily big enough to dwarf even the _Excalibur_. The writing etched onto the surface of the gigantic yet elegant structure draws in Sheridan's attention.

"This writing, it reminds me of Latin yet it's not." Sheridan squinted. "Not Vorlon, not Shadow, not Minbari. IPX is going to love this."

"Mr. President, General O'Neill of the _Prometheus_ for you."

Sheridan accepted the incoming transmission. "General, can you tell us anything about this device?"

"Not much." He replied. "Like I said, the stupid thing was never detected until our FTL course intersected with its position but I'll bet a case of naquadria that this big bastard's powered by ZPMs and since naquadah is a naturally occurring superconductor, I can safely say that this sucker can generate enough juice to power all of Earth non-stop for a few millennia."

Everyone in the _Excalibur_'s bridge shared stunned expressions at the thought of such advanced energy sources capable of lasting for so long. "How do you plan on turning it on?"

"According to Carter's theory, a full power scan should be enough to turn it on…hopefully." Jack admits. "We're in no rush to get home, but we need to make sure that the way is open for us."

"I understand General, you want to try and open the portal?" Sheridan confirms.

"We do, everyone will keep their distance while we move up and make our usual 'leap-of-faith'...just like we used to do."

"And we can monitor the device functioning and give us a better idea how it works and why it ended up here." Sheridan agreeing. "Very well, General, we'll keep our distance too and be ready for an activation but are you sure that you should be the point man for this?"

"Yeah, I'm sure, this was pretty much routine for the team and I…besides, I'm a solid believer of 'to boldly go where no one as gone before.'"

Sheridan grins at the Star Trek reference as he ends the transmission and notices Garibaldi giving him a serious look. "What?"

"We've still only got their word on what it does or what it's capable of." The bald man states. "What if it activates and a fleet of unknown warships pour through? We're in no condition to fight off another attack."

Sheridan smiled thinly. "That's why I brought the _Excalibur_, if anything goes wrong we fire up the primary weapon and blast that gate to scrap."

"And hope it's enough…but do you get the feeling that the Excalibur's main gun is only going to scratch that thing?" Garibaldi comments.

"We're you always this paranoid?"

"For the tenth time, yeah." He smiles. "Comes with the job."

"Yeah, I got the same feeling too."

"Good…and not so good if our gut feeling is right on the money."

The _Prometheus_ drew their attention as it moves forward while everyone else moves back, and then begins a series of powerful scans directed at the device, almost immediately a huge power surge begins to gather.

"What sort of scanners are they using?" Garibaldi asks as the _Prometheus_ completes her sweep.

"Unknown sir," the _Excalibur_'s own sensor tech replies. "They're operating on very different principles to our own but from what I can gather, they're an order of magnitude, at least, more powerful than our Vorlon ones, that's for damn sure."

"What about the device, are we getting anything new?" Sheridan questions.

"I have no idea where it's getting all that power from, sir." The officer replies. "Energy readings don't match anything we've seen before…and it just went off the scale! Sir, according to my instruments, some of the minerals in the device are definitely new to science."

"Pretty nifty." Garibaldi admits. "Maybe it is from a new universe?"

"Mr. President, the device just activated I guess a sort of tractor beam, it's sweeping the area in front of the event horizon." Sensors reported.

"What's the _Prometheus'_ status?" Sheridan asks.

"Keeping their distance." Garibaldi answered, pointing through the bridge windows at the much smaller ship.

"Watch when they move towards the device or send a probe or message drone through the gateway." Sheridan ordered. "Anything happening in relation to the device I want to know…"

He was cut off by a violent shaking of the Excalibur. The ship's bow turned noticeably and the scenery outside began moving.

"We're caught in the tractor beam!" the sensor officer yelled. "It's pulling us in!"

"Engines, full reverse!" Sheridan roars out.

The huge warship diverted power to its drive systems, blue flame flaring from the forward thrusters but without much effect as the tractor beam was designed to deal with more powerful types of sublight drives, the wide device growing ever closer. The ship shudders violently enough that Garibaldi loses his balance and joins Sheridan on the floor along with several other bridge personnel who were not buckled into their seats.

"It isn't working!" the female helm officer shouted. "Ten kilometers to the device!"

"Sir, Prometheus is moving in off our flank, they're scanning the device, maybe trying to shut it down."

"Can we get a message to them?" Sheridan calls out.

"Communications jammed, all frequencies are flooded by this energy field!"

The ship rocks violently again as the beam intensifies as they are drawn closer.

"We can't break free of this!" Helm calls out.

"What about the main gun?" Garibaldi shouts. "Destroy it!"

"We're too close!" Sheridan yells back in reply. "It's too late, hang on!"

The _Excalibur_ is dragged into the device, as it touches the hollow oval filled with swirling blue energy like a rippling puddle, which the ISA destroyer passes through the event horizon like a diver. It was gone in an instant, leaving the device inactive and cooling down with the Prometheus standing by, unable to do nothing but watch.

"Well, that ain't good." Mitchell loudly points out, giving voice to the entire bridge crew's thoughts.

"No shit, Sherlock!" Jack growls. "Comms, order our task force to hold position while we head in and retrieve the _Excalibur_… and we better tell the fleet what happened to their President."

"Think they'll be pissed at us for bringing him here, sir?"

Jack gives her a look. If the ship had gone back to his own universe it would be safe, but there was a possibility it had gone to a completely different reality, there was just no way of knowing. He hated Ancient devices, especially when the Ancients forgot to leave an instruction manual for the damn things! "Follow 'em." Jack orders, before muttering under his breath, "Here we go again…"

_Prometheus_ sweeps the device with its powerful sensors, triggering the activation protocols once more, the event horizon flashing into existence as a rippling pool of water, the Prometheus charges into the event horizon with the rest of the fleet watching as they hold position around the Gate…

_**To Be Continued…**_


End file.
